Importing keys

Importing keys is possible with the key_import() method and takes one argument which is a bytes literal object containing either the binary or ASCII armoured key data for one or more keys.

The following example retrieves one or more keys from the SKS keyservers via the web using the requests module. Since requests returns the content as a bytes literal object, we can then use that directly to import the resulting data into our keybox.

import gpg
import os.path
import requests

c = gpg.Context()
url = "https://sks-keyservers.net/pks/lookup"
pattern = input("Enter the pattern to search for key or user IDs: ")
payload = { "op": "get", "search": pattern }

r = requests.get(url, verify=True, params=payload)
result = c.key_import(r.content)

if result is not None and hasattr(result, "considered") is False:
    print(result)
elif result is not None and hasattr(result, "considered") is True:
    num_keys = len(result.imports)
    new_revs = result.new_revocations
    new_sigs = result.new_signatures
    new_subs = result.new_sub_keys
    new_uids = result.new_user_ids
    new_scrt = result.secret_imported
    nochange = result.unchanged
    print("""
The total number of keys considered for import was:  {0}

   Number of keys revoked:  {1}
 Number of new signatures:  {2}
    Number of new subkeys:  {3}
   Number of new user IDs:  {4}
Number of new secret keys:  {5}
 Number of unchanged keys:  {6}

The key IDs for all considered keys were:
""".format(num_keys, new_revs, new_sigs, new_subs, new_uids, new_scrt,
	    nochange))
    for i in range(num_keys):
	print(result.imports[i].fpr)
    print("")
else:
    pass

Note: When searching for a key ID of any length or a fingerprint (without spaces), the SKS servers require the the leading 0x indicative of hexadecimal be included. Also note that the old short key IDs (e.g. 0xDEADBEEF) should no longer be used due to the relative ease by which such key IDs can be reproduced, as demonstrated by the Evil32 Project in 2014 (which was subsequently exploited in 2016).