keybase / keybase/keybase-issues

Error: Public Key not found after keygen

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#1,687 2 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub
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Description

If you use `keybase keygen` to generate a new key and miss to enter your key password after the key is generated the keybase cli won't find your public key.

```
keybase -v
0.8.10
```

Steps to reproduce:

``` bash
keybase keygen
# don't enter your password AFTER thy key is generated
# in this case i was absent while generation and pinentry timed out (linux)
[...]

keybase push
(1) AFFE
Pick a key: 1 # pick the keybase.io key
info: Picked key: AFFE
info: success!

keybase track
error: you don't have a public key; try `keybase push` if you have a key; or `keybase gen` if you don't
```

At this point your public key is shown on the website but the cli plays dump

```
keybase list-signatures
# no output command exits successfully
```

keybase pull won't fix the issue

```
keybase pull
error: you don't have a public key; try `keybase push` if you have a key; or `keybase gen` if you don't
```

You can even push the key multiple times with success without specifing `-u`.

TO FIX THIS:
Track a user with gpg + curl or do a poof with gpg + curl.
After this the keybase cli will find your public key.

Contributor guide

No contributing guide indexed for this repository

Research direction

Start by reproducing the timeout scenario with `keybase keygen`, then run the reported `keybase push`, `keybase track`, `keybase list-signatures`, and `keybase pull` commands. Trace the keygen-to-push flow and confirm that the generated public key becomes discoverable after the password prompt times out; the existing commands should then recognize it without the manual GPG and curl workaround.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Domain
cli, cryptography
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
25/100

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