[pkg-gnupg-maint] Bug#860745: Bug#860745: Please suggest a fix for "server $SOMETHING is older than us" message

[Daniel Kahn Gillmor]

Hi Enrico--

On Wed 2017-04-19 18:26:48 +0200, Enrico Zini wrote:

> I get some warnings when I run some gpg commands:
>
> gpg: WARNING: server 'dirmngr' is older than us (2.1.17 < 2.1.18)
> gpg: WARNING: server 'gpg-agent' is older than us (2.1.17 < 2.1.18)
>
> I'd like to restart those services, but I have no idea of how.

The upstream way to tear down those services (which is independent of
whatever system manager you're using) is:

    gpgconf --kill gpg-agent
    gpgconf --kill dirmngr

They will be automatically restarted as needed.

If you're using systemd (it looks like you are) with libpam-systemd and
have a per-user systemd manager running (you probably do), then you can
also terminate them the same way you'd terminate any systemd user service:

    systemd --user stop gpg-agent dirmngr

And again, they'll be automatically restarted as needed.


> gpg: WARNING: server 'dirmngr' is older than us (2.1.17 < 2.1.18). Run $COMMAND to restart it.

I wouldn't want to encourage people to restart the daemons -- i'd rather
encourage them to terminate them and let the new versions be restarted
as needed, but that sounds pretty verbose.  What do you think about:

    gpg: WARNING: server 'dirmngr' is older than us (2.1.17 < 2.1.18). Run 'gpgconf --kill dirmngr' to terminate it.  A new instance will be restarted as needed.

Alternately, it might be nice for gpg to try to effect the restart
itself (though i worry that could get into a loop, since gpg itself is
short-lived compared to its helper daemons).

Any other suggestions?

            --dkg
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