Comment 13 for bug 540126

On Sun, 2010-05-30 at 12:25 +0000, Daniel Leidert wrote:
> sudo preserves $HOME IIRC, which might be the problem here. But you
> don't quote the error message ...

user@machine:~$ sudo gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.educ --recv-keys 0xE394D996
gpg: WARNING: unsafe ownership on configuration file
`/home/user/.gnupg/gpg.conf'
gpg: external program calls are disabled due to unsafe options file
permissions
gpg: keyserver communications error: general error
gpg: keyserver receive failed: general error

> Second issue: --recv-keys is a gpg command, whereas --keyserver is an
> option. gpg expects options before commands. So the first --recv-keys
> might be a problem in several cases. But that's JFTR.

E: Command line option --recv-keys is not understood
user@machine:~$ sudo # gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys
0xE394D996

it makes sens now.

> It works from the root user account without any issues. So become root
> or try the -H switch of sudo or fix the sudoers file - I guess this will
> help. Please ask such things on your favourite Ubuntu user
> list/newsgroup/community.

I will. Again thank you for the lead. I can now formulate my pgp related
questions and ask on the newsgroup/forum.
 regards,
 nomnex