baffled at "Chapter 1. Getting Started" due to gpg: agent_genkey failed: No pinentry

[Dennis Clarke]

Looking at https://www.gnupg.org/gph/en/manual/c14.html one would get
the idea that GPG would "just work" given that pinentry is right there
in my PATH :


oberon$ which pinentry
/usr/local/bin/pinentry
oberon$
oberon$ ldd /usr/local/bin/pinentry
         linux-vdso.so.1 (0x00007fff605ed000)
         libassuan.so.9 => /usr/local/lib/libassuan.so.9 
(0x00007f100e315000)
         libgpg-error.so.0 => /usr/local/lib/libgpg-error.so.0 
(0x00007f100e2df000)
         libncursesw.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libncursesw.so.6 
(0x00007f100e28d000)
         libtinfo.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libtinfo.so.6 
(0x00007f100e25a000)
         libiconv.so.2 => /usr/local/lib/libiconv.so.2 (0x00007f100e160000)
         libc.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 (0x00007f100df7d000)
         /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007f100e34e000)
oberon$ /usr/local/bin/pinentry --version
pinentry-curses (pinentry) 1.3.1
Copyright (C) 2016 g10 Code GmbH
License GPLv2+: GNU GPL version 2 or later <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/>
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
oberon$
oberon$ PINENTRY_PATH=/usr/local/bin
oberon$ export PINENTRY_PATH
oberon$
oberon$ gpg --full-generate-key
gpg (GnuPG) 2.4.5; Copyright (C) 2024 g10 Code GmbH
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

Please select what kind of key you want:
    (1) RSA and RSA
    (2) DSA and Elgamal
    (3) DSA (sign only)
    (4) RSA (sign only)
    (9) ECC (sign and encrypt) *default*
   (10) ECC (sign only)
   (14) Existing key from card
Your selection? 9
Please select which elliptic curve you want:
    (1) Curve 25519 *default*
    (4) NIST P-384
    (6) Brainpool P-256
Your selection? 1
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
Key is valid for? (0) 0
Key does not expire at all
Is this correct? (y/N) y

.
. etc etc
.
We need to generate a lot of random bytes. It is a good idea to perform
some other action (type on the keyboard, move the mouse, utilize the
disks) during the prime generation; this gives the random number
generator a better chance to gain enough entropy.
gpg: agent_genkey failed: No pinentry
Key generation failed: No pinentry
oberon$

This makes no sense at all give that pinentry exists just fine.

What is this "agent_genkey" thing? There is no mention of that on the
"Getting Started" page at all.



-- 
Dennis Clarke
RISC-V/SPARC/PPC/ARM/CISC
UNIX and Linux spoken