After I joined the FSFE Fellowship a few months ago, I received a nice OpenPGP smartcard. Now I’m using it for real, and I like it!

I’ve decided to buy two OpenPGP card readers on Kernel concepts:

• Gemalto PC Express card for my laptop
• SCM SCR-335 for my workstation

Both are very easy to get working on Arch Linux: just install ccid and pcsclite from the AUR, restart udev, start pcscd (/etc/rc.d/pcscd start), plug your reader in, and you’re good to go.

The next step is to create a key to be used with the card. There is a good tutorial on this topic on the FSFE Wiki. Only one step can be greatly enhanced: step 12, “Removing the master key from the keyring”. Here is a much easier version:

1. Backup your public key: gpg --armor --export 559C215F > publickey.asc
2. Remove your private and public key from your keyring: gpg --delete-secret-and-public-key 559C215F
3. Import your public key: gpg --import publickey.asc
4. Edit your key and set its trust level to Ultimate: gpg --edit-key 559C215F, trust, 5, save, quit
5. Make GPG check your smartcard and recreate the secret key stubs by itself: gpg --card-status

That’s it! Now you can return to the tutorial and test your card.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

And don't forget to have fun!
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux)

iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJL8+C0AAoJEMPdciX+bh5InokH/17+dG0bYU05dTqHVOIDUKch
dGJ75jnO3cci9UcZeqghyH0Odi1uPpidRLWKjd1EogHNo24fb6/CwyL+6yUgW/RF
No0YOKG2r6dJGqpD91v5afd70JSkwMo66CRBpsou5TM6b6bG2p6dHVg3r2pJOKwJ
WoMbrsgHAAX7pGpAjhjREMLTIADwh5+5d1aQJx3qTjWNh908PVm+KN1iT9eryBWE
UJb98O6Zj02I4OTX3VsBmC29FyjfISBJ7LIElZQFTV7I3BIE+FDK9H9Hnb/3psF+
G/VOgHPILzd+BxuUzo4PGVne2GMPHv6vmm+yQlgvuz5Bnn/duU8gWVc+erDC2xQ=
=K7tA
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Many thanks to the people involved in this thread on the GnuPG mailing list for the tip!