Release Digest: GNU, August 26, 2004

GnuPG 1.2.6

Hello!

We are pleased to announce the availability of a new stable
GnuPG release: Version 1.2.6

The GNU Privacy Guard (GnuPG) is GNU’s tool for secure
communication and data storage. It is a complete and free
replacement of PGP and can be used to encrypt data and to create
digital signatures. It includes an advanced key management facility
and is compliant with the proposed OpenPGP Internet standard as
described in RFC2440.

This is mainly a bug fix release. In particular it fixes the
installation problem of 1.2.5; for details see the “What’s New”
section below.

Getting the Software

Please follow the instructions found at http://www.gnupg.org/download/
or read on:

GnuPG 1.2.6 may be downloaded from one of the GnuPG mirror sites
or direct from ftp://ftp.gnupg.org/gcrypt. The
list of mirrors can be found at http://www.gnupg.org/mirrors.html.
Note, that GnuPG is not available at ftp.gnu.org/.

On the mirrors you should find the following files in the
gnupg directory:

gnupg-1.2.6.tar.bz2 (2490k)
gnupg-1.2.6.tar.bz2.sig

GnuPG source compressed using BZIP2 and OpenPGP signature.

gnupg-1.2.6.tar.gz (3608k)
gnupg-1.2.6.tar.gz.sig

GnuPG source compressed using GZIP and OpenPGP signature.

gnupg-1.2.5-1.2.6.diff.gz (305k)

A patch file to upgrade a 1.2.5 GnuPG source.

Select one of them. To shorten the download time, you probably
want to get the BZIP2 compressed file. Please try another mirror if
exceptional your mirror is not yet up to date.

Note that there is no binary version for Windows because the
fixed bugs are not relevant on Windows.

Checking the Integrity

In order to check that the version of GnuPG which you are going
to install is an original and unmodified one, you can do it in one
of the following ways:

• If you already have a trusted version of GnuPG installed, you
  can simply check the supplied signature. For example to check the
  signature of the file gnupg-1.2.6.tar.bz2 you would use this
  command:

gpg –verify gnupg-1.2.6.tar.bz2.sig

This checks whether the signature file matches the source file.
You should see a message indicating that the signature is good and
made by that signing key. Make sure that you have the right key,
either by checking the fingerprint of that key with other sources
or by checking that the key has been signed by a trustworthy other
key. Note, that you can retrieve the signing key using “finger wk
‘at’ g10code.com” or “finger dd9jn ‘at’ gnu.org” or using the keyservers. I recently
prolonged the expiration date; thus you might need a fresh copy of
that key.

Never use a GnuPG version you just downloaded to check the
integrity of the source – use an existing GnuPG installation!

• If you are not able to use an old version of GnuPG, you have to
  verify the MD5 checksum. Assuming you downloaded the file
  gnupg-1.2.6.tar.bz2, you would run the md5sum command like
  this:

md5sum gnupg-1.2.6.tar.bz2

and check that the output matches the first line from the
following list:

b1890f5dfacd2ba7ab15448c5ff08a4e gnupg-1.2.6.tar.bz2
56b10a6f444fff2565f4d960a11b2206 gnupg-1.2.6.tar.gz
3d5199fd729e2cf254a267c6935eeeaf gnupg-1.2.5-1.2.6.diff.gz

Upgrade Information

If you are upgrading from a version prior to 1.0.7, you should
run the script tools/convert-from-106 once. Please note also that
due to a bug in versions prior to 1.0.6 it may not be possible to
downgrade to such versions unless you apply the patch http://www.gnupg.org/developer/gpg-woody-fix.txt
.

If you have any problems, please see the FAQ and the mailing
list archive at http://lists.gnupg.org. Please direct
questions to the [email protected] mailing
list.

What’s New

Here is a list of major user visible changes since 1.2.6:

• Updated the included gettext. This also fixes the installation
  problem from 1.2.5
• Fixed a race condition possibly leading to deleted keys.

Internationalization

GnuPG comes with support for 28 languages:

Languages marked with [*] were not updated for this release and
you may notice untranslated messages. Many thanks to the
translators for their ongoing support of GnuPG.

Future Directions

GnuPG 1.2.x is the current stable branch and won’t undergo any
serious changes. We will just fix bugs and add compatibility fixes
as required.

GnuPG 1.3.x is the version were we do most new stuff and it will
lead to the next stable version 1.4 not too far away.

GnuPG 1.9.x is next generation GnuPG. This version merged the
code >From the Aegypten project and thus it includes the
gpg-agent, a smartcard daemon and gpg’s S/MIME cousin gpgsm. The
design is different to the previous versions and we may not support
all ancient systems – thus POSIX compatibility will be an absolute
requirement for supported platforms. 1.9 is based on an somewhat
older 1.3 code and will peacefully coexist with other GnuPG
versions.

Happy Hacking,

The GnuPG Team (David, Stefan, Timo and Werner)

—
Werner Koch