gnupg: set subkey expiration date in the past

Question

I would like to set the expiration date of a GPG subkey in the past, but gpg --edit-key does not allow me to. Is there any workaround to that?

Rationale: it is useful to set the expiration date of a subkey in the past in order to temporarily disable it. If you just revoke it, you lose the ability to enable it again later on.

score 6 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:13

6

A possible workaround is to use faketime to convince gnupg to not complain. See this other question:

$ faketime 'last week' gpg2 --edit-key ABCDEF12

and then use ordinary commands to expire the subkey tomorrow. That "tomorrow" will actually be six days ago.

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:13

Community

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answered Nov 07 '15 at 10:54

Giovanni Mascellani

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Thank you for showing me faketime... – Theodore R. Smith Jul 21 '21 at 17:04

gnupg: set subkey expiration date in the past

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