# Public Key Server Commands

HTML Forms support required!

## Extract a key from the server

## Submit a key to the server

Back to the Keyserver home page.

## Extracting a key

Here's how to extract a key:

1. Select either the "Index" or "Verbose Index" check box. The "Verbose" option also displays all signatures on displayed keys.
2. Type ID you want to search for in the "Search String" box.
3. Press the "Do the search!" key.
4. The server will return a (verbose) list of keys on the server matching the given ID. (The ID can be any valid argument to a pgp -kv(v) command. If you want to look up a key by its hexadecimal KeyID, remember to prefix the ID with "0x".)
5. The returned index will have hypertext links for every bracket-delimited identifier (i.e. <bal@zurich.ai.mit.edu>). Clicking on the hypertext link will display an ASCII-armored version of the listed public key.

Index: Verbose Index:

Search String:

Show PGP "fingerprints" for keys

Extract caveats:

- Currently, hypertext links are only generated for text found between matching brackets. (It's a common convention to put your e-mail address inside brackets somewhere in the key ID string.)

## Submitting a new key to the server

Here's how to add a key to the server's keyring:

1. Enter your e-mail address in the space provided. The server will e-mail a confirmation to that address after it has processed your key.
2. Cut-and-paste an ASCII-armored version of your public key into the text box.
3. Press "Submit".

That's it! The keyserver processes ADD requests every 10 minutes. After your key has been processed the server will send a message to your e-mail address. After you've received confirmation, you can check that your key exists using the extract procedure above.

E-mail address for auto-reply:

Enter ASCII-armored PGP key here:

Submit caveats:

- The script that executes when you push the "Submit" button doesn't actually frob the keyserver database directly. It takes your e-mail address and ASCII-armored key and forges an incoming mail message to pgp-public-keys@pgp.ai.mit.edu. This forged mail message then gets processed just like an incoming ADD request to the mail server, which is why there's up to a 10 minute delay.