[pkg-gnupg-maint] Bug#882161: gpg: fails to sign in console after quitting X; works in console after a new login

[Francesco Poli (wintermute)]

Package: gpg
Version: 2.2.2-1
Severity: important

Hello Debian GnuPG Maintainers!

I have the following pinentry packages installed:

  $ aptitude search pinentry | grep ^i
  i A pinentry-gtk2 - GTK+-2-based PIN or pass-phrase entry dialog for GnuPG
  i  pinentry-tty - minimal dumb-terminal PIN or pass-phrase entry for GnuPG

Hence, I expect gpg to work in text consoles (without X), as well as in
X sessions.

Well, I have no problems, when in an X session (pinentry-gtk2 asks for
the passphrase and gpg is able to sign and/or decrypt data).
On the other hand, I cannot use gpg in the text console, after exiting
from an X session.

Steps to reproduce the bug:

0) login on a text console (textual login on getty, I mean)

1) start an X session

     $ startx

2) use the X session a bit and then quit from it

3) back to the text console (the one where you logged in); try to sign
   a file

     $ gpg --sign foo
     gpg: using "XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX" as default secret key for signing
     gpg: signing failed: Permission denied
     gpg: signing failed: Permission denied

   gpg exited with the above error and no foo.gpg was generated

     $ ls
     foo

4) exit from the text console

     $ exit

5) login again on the text console

6) try again (without starting an X session)

     $ gpg --sign foo

   pinentry-tty correctly asks for the passphrase and everything
   works as intended

7) file foo.gpg has been generated

     $ ls
     foo  foo.gpg


What's wrong?
What did I fail to understand?

Please let me know.
Thanks for your time!



-- System Information:
Debian Release: buster/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (800, 'testing'), (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 4.13.0-1-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE=en_US:en (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)

Versions of packages gpg depends on:
ii  gpgconf        2.2.2-1
ii  libassuan0     2.4.3-3
ii  libbz2-1.0     1.0.6-8.1
ii  libc6          2.24-17
ii  libgcrypt20    1.7.9-2
ii  libgpg-error0  1.27-5
ii  libreadline7   7.0-3
ii  libsqlite3-0   3.21.0-1
ii  zlib1g         1:1.2.8.dfsg-5

Versions of packages gpg recommends:
ii  gnupg  2.2.2-1

gpg suggests no packages.

-- no debconf information