dirmngr system integration ========================== Since 2.1.x, gpg and most related processes will auto-launch dirmngr if needed. These auto-launched processes will inherit whatever environment they started from, and they will not terminate automatically. systemd ======= Since 2.1.17, users on machines with systemd will have a dirmngr process launched automatically by systemd's user session, upon first access of the standard socket. systemd will also cleanly tear this process down at session logout. Users who don't want systemd to manage their dirmngr in this way for all future sessions should do: systemctl --user mask --now dirmngr.socket Doing this means that dirmngr will fall back to its manual mode of operation. (This decision can be reversed by the user with "unmask" instead of "mask") See systemctl(1) for more details about managing the dirmngr.socket unit. Manual dirmngr startup and teardown =================================== Any user who wants to launch dirmngr manually (e.g., to talk to it with a tool from outside the GnuPG suite) and is *not* using systemd should first ensure that it is launched with: gpgconf --launch dirmngr If dirmngr is launched manually or automatically (but not supervised by systemd), you also probably want to ensure that it terminates when your session ends with: gpgconf --kill dirmngr If you're not using systemd, you may wish to add this command to your session logout scripts. -- Daniel Kahn Gillmor , Mon, 23 Jan 2017 22:49:45 -0500