Arch Linux

art

Member

Registered: 2019-08-12

Posts: 63

[SOLVED] GnuPG install error: "gpg: can't connect to the dirmngr"

The error is below. It blocks me from updating all the system.

Error:

LANG=en gpg --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys CB9387521E1EE0127DA804843FDBB55084CC5D84

    gpg: can't connect to the dirmngr: IPC connect call failed
    gpg: keyserver receive failed: No dirmngr

I tried:

Reinstalling GnuPG: `yay -S gnupg`. Removing gnupg does not work so far: gnupg has dependencies (pacman).

Agent is running:

❯ ps -e | grep agent
   1034 ?        00:00:00 ssh-agent
 238336 ?        00:00:00 gpg-agent

I tried to reconfigure:

    ❯ sudo pkill -f dirmngr
    sudo pkill -f gpg-agent
    sudo pkill -f gpg


    ❯ rm -f ~/.gnupg/S.dirmngr
    rm -f ~/.gnupg/S.gpg-agent*

    zsh: no matches found: /home/art/.gnupg/S.gpg-agent*

    ~
    ❯ dirmngr --daemon

    DIRMNGR_INFO=/run/user/1000/gnupg/S.dirmngr:234165:1; export DIRMNGR_INFO;


    ~
    ❯ LANG=en gpg --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys CB9387521E1EE0127DA804843FDBB55084CC5D84
    gpg: can't connect to the dirmngr: IPC connect call failed
    gpg: keyserver receive failed: No dirmngr"

How to fix? Thank you

Last edited by art (2025-08-07 06:23:25)

bambito

Member

Registered: 2025-08-04

Posts: 1

Website

Re: [SOLVED] GnuPG install error: "gpg: can't connect to the dirmngr"

Run:
pacman -Ql gnupg | grep dirmngr

If you don't see /usr/bin/dirmngr, reinstall gnupg to restore it:
sudo pacman -S gnupg --needed

art

Member

Registered: 2019-08-12

Posts: 63

Re: [SOLVED] GnuPG install error: "gpg: can't connect to the dirmngr"

The gnupg has it:

❯ pacman -Ql gnupg | grep dirmngr
gnupg /usr/bin/dirmngr
gnupg /usr/bin/dirmngr-client
gnupg /usr/lib/gnupg/dirmngr_ldap
gnupg /usr/lib/systemd/system/dirmngr@.service
gnupg /usr/lib/systemd/system/dirmngr@.socket
gnupg /usr/lib/systemd/user/dirmngr.service
gnupg /usr/lib/systemd/user/dirmngr.socket
gnupg /usr/lib/systemd/user/sockets.target.wants/dirmngr.socket
gnupg /usr/share/doc/gnupg/examples/systemd-user/dirmngr.service
gnupg /usr/share/doc/gnupg/examples/systemd-user/dirmngr.socket
gnupg /usr/share/man/man1/dirmngr-client.1.gz
gnupg /usr/share/man/man8/dirmngr.8.gz

And the last:

❯ LANG=en sudo pacman -S gnupg --needed
warning: gnupg-2.4.8-1 is up to date -- skipping
 there is nothing to do

Last edited by art (2025-08-04 09:05:55)

seth

Member

From: Don't DM me only for attention

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 74,314

Re: [SOLVED] GnuPG install error: "gpg: can't connect to the dirmngr"

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/GnuPG# … all_failed
In doubt

printenv
loginctl session-status

---

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art

Member

Registered: 2019-08-12

Posts: 63

Re: [SOLVED] GnuPG install error: "gpg: can't connect to the dirmngr"

@seth Thank you for the link (https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/GnuPG# … all_failed) . I solved this by doing:

❯ chmod 700 $GNUPGHOME/crls.d

And restarting the agent.