Importing LibrePGP PQC secret keys in unattended mode

Marian Kechlibar <[email protected]> Tue, 27 Jan 2026 17:37:00 +0100

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

Hello,

with GnuPG 2.5.16 and libgcrypt 11.1.2 on Windows (Gpg4Win 5.0.0), I ran 
into an issue when importing PQC secret keys into a keyring without 
human interaction like this:

gpg --batch --yes --pinentry-mode loopback --passphrase "pass" --import 
(asc file name)

The secret key gets parsed, but not imported, and there is an IPC 
parameter complaint in stderr.

Gpg-agent log set to "guru" shows the following error:

2026-01-27 17:13:15 gpg-agent[16212] command 'IMPORT_KEY' failed: Chyba 
parametru IPC
2026-01-27 17:13:15 gpg-agent[16212] DBG: chan_0x00000000000002c0 -> ERR 
67109144 Chyba parametru IPC <GPG agent> - "--unattended" may only be 
used with OpenPGP keys

"Chyba parametru" means "Parameter error" in Czech.

This happens with both protected and unprotected (empty password) PQC 
keys, but it never happens with RSA or ECC keys.

Is this still work in progress?

(My use case: I want to run some automatic tests with separate homedirs, 
and I want to import all the test keys at their start, then 
decrypt/encrypt data using them.)

Best regards

Marian Kechlibar

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