IPC Error on GPG Agent with Git on Windows

Question

I would like to use GPG without Gpg4win installed on Windows because Git for Windows includes the binary for GPG we well, so I would like to use it instead of installing an extra application.

However, when I setup the GPG (e.g adding Path etc), I have encountered the following error:

C:\Users\me> gpgconf --launch gpg-agent
gpgconf: error running '/usr/bin/gpg-connect-agent': exit status 1
gpgconf: error running '/usr/bin/gpg-connect-agent NOP': General error

And with gpg-connect-agent:

C:\Users\me> gpg-connect-agent /bye
gpg-connect-agent: no running gpg-agent - starting '/usr/bin/gpg-agent'
gpg-connect-agent: waiting for the agent to come up ... (5s)
gpg-connect-agent: waiting for the agent to come up ... (4s)
gpg-connect-agent: waiting for the agent to come up ... (3s)
gpg-connect-agent: waiting for the agent to come up ... (2s)
gpg-connect-agent: waiting for the agent to come up ... (1s)
gpg-connect-agent: can't connect to the agent: IPC connect call failed
gpg-connect-agent: error sending standard options: No agent running

I need the agent to be running in order to sign the git commits, so I am not sure what is happening.

Before this error happens, I was using Gpg4win, which has no errors at all (to make sure it is not a versioning issue, I have removed everything in %userprofile%/.gnupg)

System Info:

Windows 10 21H1 19043.1110
git version 2.29.2.windows.1

C:\Users\me> gpg --version
  gpg (GnuPG) 2.2.23-unknown
  libgcrypt 1.8.7
  Copyright (C) 2020 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
  License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>
  This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
  There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

  Home: C:/Users/me/.gnupg
  Supported algorithms:
  Pubkey: RSA, ELG, DSA, ECDH, ECDSA, EDDSA
  Cipher: IDEA, 3DES, CAST5, BLOWFISH, AES, AES192, AES256, TWOFISH,
          CAMELLIA128, CAMELLIA192, CAMELLIA256
  Hash: SHA1, RIPEMD160, SHA256, SHA384, SHA512, SHA224
  Compression: Uncompressed, ZIP, ZLIB, BZIP2

where gpg: C:\Program Files\Git\usr\bin\gpg.exe
where git: C:\Program Files\Git\cmd\git.exe

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

score 5 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 23 '21 at 21:58

5

I had the same problem on a fresh install of gnupg2 on a new MacOS (Monterey). It seems the installation doesn't create the .gnupg folder.

In my case this was solved by running:

gpg -K

which resulted in the creation of the missing folder

gpg: directory '/Users/xxx/.gnupg' created 
gpg: keybox '/Users/xxx/.gnupg/pubring.kbx' created
gpg: /Users/xxx/.gnupg/trustdb.gpg: trustdb created

and all was well.

answered Nov 23 '21 at 21:58

Ray Oei

1,827
1
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Alas same symptoms, but ~/.gnupg is already present and gpg -K returns "gpg: can't connect to the agent: IPC connect call failed". – Graham Leggett May 10 '22 at 18:18

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 10 '21 at 05:17

I managed to figure it out.

This is because the gpg in git for windows uses MINGW64 for the environment. And because I manually set the GNUPGHOME environment variable to a Windows path: C:/users/me/.gnupg, it will not work.

(I never use the included MINGW64 git bash, I only use cmd and add those exe, like git, gpg into PATH)

So, if you have manually set the GNUPGHOME env variable, you need to change to a MINGW64 path.

So in my case, C:/users/me/.gnupg -> /c/users/me/.gnupg

I am not sure about --homedir though.

IPC Error on GPG Agent with Git on Windows

2 Answers2