Subcommand options¶

--amount=AMOUNT

The required amount of trust.

120 indicates full authentication; values less than 120 indicate partial authentication. When `--certification-network` is passed, this defaults to 1200, i.e., `sq pki` tries to find 10 paths.

--certification-network

Treats the network as a certification network.

Normally, `sq pki` treats the Web of Trust network as an authentication network where a certification only means that the binding is correct, not that the target should be treated as a trusted introducer. In a certification network, the targets of certifications are treated as trusted introducers with infinite depth, and any regular expressions are ignored. Note: The trust amount remains unchanged. This is how most so-called PGP path-finding algorithms work.

--email=EMAIL

Use a user ID with the specified email address.

This first searches for a matching self-signed user ID. If there is no self-signed user ID with the specified email, it uses a new user ID with the specified email address, and no display name.

--gossip

Treats all certificates as unreliable trust roots.

This option is useful for figuring out what others think about a certificate (i.e., gossip or hearsay). In other words, this finds arbitrary paths to a particular certificate.

Gossip is useful in helping to identify alternative ways to authenticate a certificate. For instance, imagine Ed wants to authenticate Laura's certificate, but asking her directly is inconvenient. Ed discovers that Micah has certified Laura's certificate, but Ed hasn't yet authenticated Micah's certificate. If Ed is willing to rely on Micah as a trusted introducer, and authenticating Micah's certificate is easier than authenticating Laura's certificate, then Ed has learned about an easier way to authenticate Laura's certificate.

--show-paths

Show why a binding is authenticated.

By default, only a user ID and certificate binding's degree of authentication (a value between 0 and 120) is shown. This changes the output to also show how that value was computed by showing the paths from the trust roots to the bindings.

--userid=USERID

Use the specified user ID.

The specified user ID does not need to be self signed.

PATTERN

A pattern to select the bindings to authenticate.

The pattern is treated as a UTF-8 encoded string and a case insensitive substring search (using the current locale) is performed against each User ID. If a User ID is not valid UTF-8, the binding is ignored.

Global options¶

See sq(1) for a description of the global options.