Renewing expiring key - done correctly?

[Charly Avital]

Eric Poellinger wrote on 12/3/13, 6:22 PM:
> This is the key before issuing the 'expire' command:
> 
> pub  2048R/4A4DBDC7  created: 2012-01-13  expires: 2014-01-12  usage: SC
>                      trust: ultimate      validity: ultimate
> sub  2048R/0C0305EC  created: 2012-01-13  expires: 2014-01-12  usage: E
> 
> 
> I did a 2 year expiration and the master key (4A4DBDC7 ) was updated as
> expected (to 2015-12-03)
> 
> PRIMARY QUESTIONS - I am uncertain about the sub-key.  When I attempt to
> 'expire' it the date does not seem to change.  Maybe you cannot expire a
> sub-key?  Maybe I do not need to care because we are not using it in our
> encryption commands??  FYI, this key is only with one trading partner,
> so managing the change is not difficult.

I had the same problem a short time ago, and solved it with the help of
a friend, and this is what I did in MacOSX's Terminal

$ gpg edit-key [key ID]
[..]
Secret key is available,

pub 2048R/[key ID] created: [..] expires: [..]  usage: SC
       trust: ultimate     validity: ultimate
sub 2048R/[sub-key ID] created: [..] expires: [..]  usage: E

Then:

> key 1 expire
pub  2048R/[key ID] created: [..] expires: [..]  usage: SC
        trust: ultimate     validity: ultimate
sub*  2048R/[sub-key ID]  created: [..] expires: [..] usage: E

[note the asterisk after sub, that indicates that this is the key which
has been selected for expiry]

then again:
expiry
I got:
Changing expiration time for a subkey.
Please specify how long the key should be valid.
         0 = key does not expire
      <n>  = key expires in n days
      <n>w = key expires in n weeks
      <n>m = key expires in n months
      <n>y = key expires in n years

Hope this helps.
I don't know whether you can use this method in your system.
You seem to be using web-mail with html format.

Charly
0x15E4F2EA
Mac OS X 10.9 13A603
MacBook Intel C2Duo 2GHz 13-inch, Aluminum, Late 2008 .
(GnuPG/MacGPG2) 2.0.20 - gpg (GnuPG) 1.4.15
TB 24.1.1  Enigmail version 1.6 (20131006-1849)