CAFF it’s part of the signing-party package (various OpenPGP related tools). Also we need the gnupg-agent to store our passphrase during the signing. Lets install them in Ubuntu.

$ sudo apt-get install signing-party gnupg-agent

After that, the best idea is to configure a relay host to send the emails. I followed a really good guide based on Exim4, that just works

Also we need to configure the default behaviour of CAFF, through a configuration file (.caffrc under our home directory).  You can follow this example.

# .caffrc -- vim:ft=perl:
# This file is in perl(1) format - see caff(1) for details.

$CONFIG{'owner'} = 'Juan Perez';
$CONFIG{'email'} = 'juan@perez.com';
$CONFIG{'gpg-sign-args'} = "save";
$CONFIG{'keyserver'} = "pgp.mit.edu";
$CONFIG{'caffhome'}    = $ENV{'HOME'}.'/.caff';
# Specify the last 16 characters of your key
$CONFIG{'keyid'} = [ qw{1D4FE8D976862225} ];
$CONFIG{'also-encrypt-to'} = [ qw{1D4FE8D976862225} ];

# Mail template to use for the encrypted part
$CONFIG{'mail-template'} = << 'EOM';
Hi,

please find attached the user id{(scalar @uids >= 2 ? 's' : '')}
{foreach $uid (@uids) {
$OUT .= "\t".$uid."\n";
};}of your key {$key} signed by me.

If you have multiple user ids, I sent the signature for each user id
separately to that user id's associated email address. This gives you
also the chance to upload only specific signatures if you don't want
my signature on all your user ids.

You can import the signatures by running each through `gpg --import`.

Note that I did not upload your key to any keyservers. If you want this
new signature to be available to others, please upload it yourself.
With GnuPG this can be done using
gpg --keyserver subkeys.pgp.net --send-key {$key}

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask.

Regards,

{$owner}
EOM

Before the signing process, we have to start the gpg-agent. If you got problems launching the agent, please read the following reference .

$ eval `gpg-agent --daemon`

If your KSP host gave you a keyring, the following command must be used to sign the keys. The “m” argument specifies to send mail (using the template described previously) and the “R” prevents to retrieve keys from a keyserver. We’ll use a keyring file as input.

$ caff -mR --keyfile <keyring-file>

As always, many people listed on the keyring don’t participate in the KSP. Is this case I suggest to create a file with the attendants IDs only, such as the following.

B9270F9D
1773ED49
3114452A
1D814B8E
18DC68C4
7E633BAE

Then, we have to modify the previous command.

$ caff -mR --keyfile <keyring-file> `cat <keys-to-sign>`

If you want to sign only one key and you have its ID, don’t worry. CAFF will save the day. It can retrieve the key.

$ caff -m yes <key-ID>

Finally, the batch process starts and we have to sign the keys. Enjoy the day because CAFF will help you to finish this tasks without pain.

References: Waikato Linux User Group, CAFF man page

• Debconf 7: La conferencia anual de desarrolladores del proyecto Debian será en Edimburgo, Escocia del 17 al 23 de Junio. En adición a un calendario lleno de charlas técnicas, DebConf provee una oportunidad para que desarrolladores, contribuyentes y simpatizantes se conozcan en persona y trabajen de manera más cercana.

• NaughtySVN: ¿Trabajas con Subversion? ¿Cansado de ocupar sólo la consola para hacer commits? Este cliente gráfico de SVN trabaja como una extensión de Nautilus y está inspirado en TortoiseSVN.

• Un computador por niño: La meta de esta campaña es asegurar el acceso permanente y libre a computadores para al menos 1 millón de niños y jóvenes chilenos viviendo en condiciones de pobreza antes del Bicentenario (2010).

• Package changelogs: Sitio muy útil para quienes mantienen paquetes en Debian o Ubuntu y necesitan ver información sobre algún changelog en Debian.

[tags]Debian, Debconf 7, Debian package changelog, Ubuntu, UCPN, SVN, NaughtySVN, Encuentro Linux 2007[/tags]

8 de abril de 2007

El proyecto Debian se complace en anunciar la publicación oficial de
la versión 4.0 de Debian GNU/Linux, nombre en clave “etch”, tras 21
meses de desarrollo constante. Debian GNU/Linux es un sistema
operativo libre que soporta un total de once arquitecturas de
procesador e incluye los entornos KDE, GNOME y Xfce. También incluye
programas criptográficos, es compatible con la versión 2.3 del FHS y
con aquellos programas desarrollados para la versión 3.1 de la LSB.

Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 incluye un proceso de instalación totalmente
integrado, incluyendo soporte de creación de usar particiones
cifradas. Esta publicación introduce una nueva interfaz gráfica del
sistema de instalación que soporta tanto grafías que utilizan
caracteres compuestos como lenguas complejas. El sistema de
instalación de Debian GNU/Linux ahora está traducido a 58 idiomas.

Extracto de la traducción del anuncio oficial de la liberación de Debian GNU/Linux 4.0.

Para mayor información sobre el release ver acá.

Someday appeared Ubuntu, I started to use it and so easy (and quick) I became part of the project. Today I’m a LoCo contact in Ubuntu Chile (our LoCo team) and Ubuntu member

What is the big difference between Debian and Ubuntu? THE COMMUNITY! It’s incredible the feedback who has Ubuntu from their users… a happy user quickly becomes in an passionate!

I talked about this “problem” with many Debian Developers during Linux Conference Australia, and they told me that Ubuntu do a good job with the people and the idea would be “recover” their people.

Today I’m surprised! I read in Holger’s blog about debian-community.org

Debian-Community.org is an effort to give something back to the community that has a great share in making Debian the universal OS that it is. Many people contribute to Debian: obviously the developers and package maintainers, but also translators and artists and everybody who files bugs or helps someone else on a mailinglist. If you want to be part of the Debian community, but don’t want to become a developer or maintainer, Debian so far didn’t offer you much in reward…

A very good beginning!
[tags]Ubuntu, Ubuntu Community, Debian, Debian-community[/tags]