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I'm playing around with GPG (v2.2.8), trying to get a primary/master key with subkeys and several uids attached. To get to the point I'm at, I:

  1. Created the master key and gave it only (C)ertify ability.
  2. Created 3 subkeys, each with only one of (E)ncrypt, (S)ign, (A)uthenticate ability.
  3. Created revocations and paperkeys for them.
  4. Exported .gnupg folder off the machine.
  5. Removed the master private key.

As I did this quite a few times having made mistakes and misunderstanding the process (you've used gpg, right?;) I started to become more confident and in my new found state added a uid I shouldn't have. So I did the following:

gpg --edit-key 0xXXX

gpg> 2
gpg> deluid
Really remove this user ID? (y/N) y
gpg> save

What puzzles me is that there was no prompt or warning about the primary key - does it not have the uid too? Are they only tied to the public key so the private part doesn't care? Should I reimport it and remove the uid and then export it?

These are the questions this episode has prompted.

I haven't shared the keys and I'm playing around so I can blitz the whole lot if need be, just trying to understand how gpg works. Then I'm going to move on to creating a super secure crypto algo because that's probably easier to manage!

1 Answer 1

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It's a one-way relationship: the primary key can have UIDs attached to it, and attaching an UID requires signing it with the primary key (self-certifying), but the primary key does not depend on UIDs' existence, and adding/removing UIDs does not alter the primary key itself in any way. The UIDs are standalone packets, and are only necessary for key lookup by name/address (instead of by fingerprint).

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