Re: primary key expiration and subkeys

Bernhard Reiter via Gnupg-devel <[email protected]> Thu, 22 Jan 2026 15:46:24 +0100

Newsgroups	gmane.comp.encryption.gpg.devel
Message-ID	<[email protected]>

Hello Ben,

Am Dienstag 20 Januar 2026 07:31:21 schrieb Ben Kibbey:
> Is it normal behavior to add a subkey whose expiration is after a
> primary key

not that I have heard of it. (Which probably is the reason why you haven't 
gotten many replies, just because who would know if people do that.)

> only to have the subkey be flagged as expired after the 
> primary key expires? 

On first thought a message like this seems okay,
because what would a subkey do if the main key has expired?

> If so, it may be good to issue a warning during 
> --edit-key that a subkey expiration is later than the primary since one
> would have to change the expiration of both the primary and subkeys to
> make use of them.

--edit-key is a low level operation, I wonder what expert GUIs like Kleopatra 
would allow. And if it is worth the effort to add a warning here.

Regards,
Bernhard

-- 
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