How to fix the user ID on an old key?

[Oskar L.]

"Alphax" <alphasigmax at gmail.com> wrote:

> If that doesn't work, gpg --sign 0x75AC881F ...

Re-signing the key was the first thing that came to my mind when I saw the
"this may be caused by a missing self-signature" message, but it doesn't
help (see below). As you can see, deleting the self-signature and then
re-signing the key, only changes the public key (sha1sums match for the
old and new secret keys). And it's the secret key that gpg has a problem
with, because I don't get this message when importing only the public key,
but it appears when importing only the secret key. The message reads "this
MAY be caused...", but can anyone confirm that this actualy is an issue
about the self-signature (or lack of) on the secret key? I suspect that
there is something else wrong with the key (why would the self-signature
have disappeared?). Any ideas?

Oskar

oskar at MM2:/mnt/hda3$ rm -f /home/oskar/.gnupg/*
oskar at MM2:/mnt/hda3$ gpg --import 75AC881F-public.asc 75AC881F-secret.asc
gpg: keyring `/home/oskar/.gnupg/secring.gpg' created
gpg: keyring `/home/oskar/.gnupg/pubring.gpg' created
gpg: /home/oskar/.gnupg/trustdb.gpg: trustdb created
gpg: key 75AC881F: public key "anon0106 at yahoo.co.uk
<anon0106 at yahoo.co.uk>" imported
gpg: key 75AC881F: secret key imported
gpg: key 75AC881F: no valid user IDs
gpg: this may be caused by a missing self-signature
gpg: Total number processed: 2
gpg:           w/o user IDs: 1
gpg:               imported: 1
gpg:       secret keys read: 1
gpg:   secret keys imported: 1
oskar at MM2:/mnt/hda3$ gpg --edit-key 75AC881F
gpg (GnuPG) 1.4.2; Copyright (C) 2005 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
under certain conditions. See the file COPYING for details.

Secret key is available.

pub  1024D/75AC881F  created: 2003-10-03  expires: never       usage: CS
                     trust: unknown       validity: unknown
sub  2048g/250C6794  created: 2003-10-03  expires: never       usage: E
[ unknown] (1). anon0106 at yahoo.co.uk <anon0106 at yahoo.co.uk>

Command> sign
"anon0106 at yahoo.co.uk <anon0106 at yahoo.co.uk>" was already signed by key
75AC881F
Nothing to sign with key 75AC881F

Command> uid 1

pub  1024D/75AC881F  created: 2003-10-03  expires: never       usage: CS
                     trust: unknown       validity: unknown
sub  2048g/250C6794  created: 2003-10-03  expires: never       usage: E
[ unknown] (1)* anon0106 at yahoo.co.uk <anon0106 at yahoo.co.uk>

Command> sign
"anon0106 at yahoo.co.uk <anon0106 at yahoo.co.uk>" was already signed by key
75AC881F
Nothing to sign with key 75AC881F

Command> delsig
uid  anon0106 at yahoo.co.uk <anon0106 at yahoo.co.uk>
sig!         75AC881F 2005-06-04  [self-signature]
Delete this good signature? (y/N/q)y
Really delete this self-signature? (y/N)y
Deleted 1 signature.

Command> sign

pub  1024D/75AC881F  created: 2003-10-03  expires: never       usage: CS
                     trust: unknown       validity: unknown
 Primary key fingerprint: 4284 0353 BAAC 7A03 034D  2FFE A1D2 BB59 75AC 881F

     anon0106 at yahoo.co.uk <anon0106 at yahoo.co.uk>

Are you sure that you want to sign this key with your
key "anon0106 at yahoo.co.uk <anon0106 at yahoo.co.uk>" (75AC881F)

This will be a self-signature.

Really sign? (y/N) y

You need a passphrase to unlock the secret key for
user: "anon0106 at yahoo.co.uk <anon0106 at yahoo.co.uk>"
1024-bit DSA key, ID 75AC881F, created 2003-10-03


Command> save
oskar at MM2:/mnt/hda3$ gpg --export-secret-key -a -o 75AC881F-secret-test.asc
oskar at MM2:/mnt/hda3$ gpg --export -a -o 75AC881F-public-test.asc
oskar at MM2:/mnt/hda3$ rm -f /home/oskar/.gnupg/*
oskar at MM2:/mnt/hda3$ gpg --import 75AC881F-public-test.asc
75AC881F-secret-test.asc
gpg: keyring `/home/oskar/.gnupg/secring.gpg' created
gpg: keyring `/home/oskar/.gnupg/pubring.gpg' created
gpg: /home/oskar/.gnupg/trustdb.gpg: trustdb created
gpg: key 75AC881F: public key "anon0106 at yahoo.co.uk
<anon0106 at yahoo.co.uk>" imported
gpg: key 75AC881F: secret key imported
gpg: key 75AC881F: no valid user IDs
gpg: this may be caused by a missing self-signature
gpg: Total number processed: 2
gpg:           w/o user IDs: 1
gpg:               imported: 1
gpg:       secret keys read: 1
gpg:   secret keys imported: 1
oskar at MM2:/mnt/hda3$ sha1sum 75AC881F*
d1c614e37994ef312468616bb4d948a007c98f1a  75AC881F-public-test.asc
3183087b880c9bffc1834fe2059ab8316081d31a  75AC881F-public.asc
fcd85f0b6f35e1262a230b79ab583c8bc459042a  75AC881F-secret-test.asc
fcd85f0b6f35e1262a230b79ab583c8bc459042a  75AC881F-secret.asc