[pkg-gnupg-maint] Bug#851462: Bug#851462: gpg-agent: a gpg-agent is already running - not starting a new one

[Daniel Kahn Gillmor]

Control: tags 851462 + moreinfo

On Sun 2017-01-15 11:34:36 -0500, Dominik George wrote:
> Control: severity -1 normal
>
>> gpgconf --kill gpg-agent kills the agent. I can also manually kill it.
>> 
>> But, no matter what I do, gpg-agent --daemon always says:
>> 
>> gpg-agent: a gpg-agent is already running - not starting a new one
>> 
>> Even if really nothing remotely resembling a gpg-agent is running.
>
> OK, I found out this is because the systemd gpg-agent socket restarts
> the agent once gpg-agent tries to start up manually…
>
> I don't know if it is a bug, but it's somehow strange and really
> annoying behaviour.
>
> Stopping all systemd user services for gpg-agent helps.

Sorry, but i'm not sure i understand this.  what behavior were you
hoping for?  if you have the gnupg-agent package installed, and you have
systemd configured on your machine, then systemd will prepare the
necessary sockets and will auto-launch the agent as soon as you try to
talk to it.

This is desirable behavior afaict -- don't run gpg-agent at all, until
someone tries to talk to it, at which point, launch it and hook it into
the connecting client.  This also means that the service manager knows
how to shut it down appropriately when the user's session ends.

Are you saying that the problem is that "gpg-agent --daemon" is saying
"already running" when in fact there is no agent actually running, even
though the socket is open and ready for listening?

       --dkg