Socket-activated dirmngr and gpg-agent with systemd
===================================================
When used on a GNU/Linux system supervised by systemd, you can ensure
that the GnuPG daemons dirmngr and gpg-agent are launched
automatically the first time they're needed, and shut down cleanly at
session logout. This is done by enabling user services via
socket-activation.
System distributors
-------------------
The *.service and *.socket files (from this directory) should be
placed in /usr/lib/systemd/user/ alongside other user-session services
and sockets.
To enable socket-activated dirmngr for all accounts on the system,
use:
systemctl --user --global enable dirmngr.socket
To enable socket-activated gpg-agent for all accounts on the system,
use:
systemctl --user --global enable gpg-agent.socket
Additionally, you can enable socket-activated gpg-agent ssh-agent
emulation for all accounts on the system with:
systemctl --user --global enable gpg-agent-ssh.socket
You can also enable restricted ("--extra-socket"-style) gpg-agent
sockets for all accounts on the system with:
systemctl --user --global enable gpg-agent-extra.socket
Individual users
----------------
A user on a system with systemd where this has not been installed
system-wide can place these files in ~/.config/systemd/user/ to make
them available.
If a given service isn't installed system-wide, or if it's installed
system-wide but not globally enabled, individual users will still need
to enable them. For example, to enable socket-activated dirmngr for
all future sessions:
systemctl --user enable dirmngr.socket
To enable socket-activated gpg-agent with ssh support, do:
systemctl --user enable gpg-agent.socket gpg-agent-ssh.socket
These changes won't take effect until your next login after you've
fully logged out (be sure to terminate any running daemons before
logging out).
If you'd rather try a socket-activated GnuPG daemon in an
already-running session without logging out (with or without enabling
it for all future sessions), kill any existing daemon and start the
user socket directly. For example, to set up socket-activated dirmgnr
in the current session:
gpgconf --kill dirmngr
systemctl --user start dirmngr.socket
