Re: key server lookup protocol?

[bruecknr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Frank Brueckner)]

Rodney, Harald,


> Is there a document anywhere describing the key lookup protocol used in PGP 
> 5? ...

> FWIW, it would have been *really* nice if this had been implemented as a WWW
> transaction, instead of as a separate protocol (on a separate port). Ah
> well; too late now, I guess.

Not too late ;-)

PGP 5.0 sends the following request:
"GET /pks/lookup?op=get&exact=on&search=<Email Address|Key ID> HTTP/1.0"

So you can run a CGI script acting as a Key Server (for retrieval), getting
the key out from a data base (e.g. X.500) and sending back an application
context like text/html or application/pgp-keys with the PGP Key in Ascii Armor.


Frank.