How to detect fingerprint and type of the key from pubring.gpg(public keyring file)?

[John Clizbe]

Martin T wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> thanks for the reply!
> 
>>> I think "method" in the example above is just indicating that this is a PGP key.
> 
> Exactly. However, how does RIPE server-side software detect that it's
> a PGP key? Is this information(besides other information like key
> creation date and UID) written into pubring.gpg file during the
> creation of the public key?
> 
Yes it's stored in the key packets. The format for all the packets is
described in RFC 4880

You can see the data yourself by listing the packet data

    gpg --export 0xDECAFBAD | gpg --list-packets

or

    gpg --export 0xDEADBEEF | pgpdump

--list-packets accepts the -v option to increase verbosity. See the gpg man page

> 
>>> No. The fingerprint is based on the key material only. You can
>>> add/change UIDs without the fingerprint changing.
> 
> Indeed. I revoked my current UID and changed it to another one and
> both public and private key fingerprints remained the same. So the key
> fingerprint is a hashed key material? Is it a SHA-1, MD5 or some other
> type of hash?

SHA-1 for current V4 keys. Covered in RFC 4880

-- 
John P. Clizbe                      Inet: John (a) Gingerbear DAWT net
SKS/Enigmail/PGP-EKP                  or: John ( @ ) Enigmail DAWT net
FSF Assoc #995 / FSFE Fellow #1797  hkp://keyserver.gingerbear.net  or
     mailto:pgp-public-keys at gingerbear.net?subject=HELP

Q:"Just how do the residents of Haiku, Hawai'i hold conversations?"
A:"An odd melody / island voices on the winds / surplus of vowels"


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