APT Signing Key Folders and Other Development Notes

Kicksecure ™

Download

On Computer USB Installation Intel / AMD64 ARM64 Raspberry Pi PPC64 Windows (VM) Mac Linux (VM) VirtualBox (VM) Qubes (VM) KVM (VM) Debian morph to Kicksecure More options Source Code

About

Overview Features Why Open Source? Project Activities Contributors Mission & Vision

Docs

Documentation FAQ Troubleshooting

Community

Forums Forum Best Practices Contribute

Support

Self Support First Policy Search Engines, Docs and AI Support (Limited) Reporting Bugs Contact (Restricted)

Tools Upload file Special pages Recent changes Print Version Page meta What links here Related changes Page information

Page Read Edit History Move Protection Unwatch Watch Delete Purge

User Preferences Watchlist Contributions Logout Create account Login

Donate

Dev/apt-revoker Design Dev/About Debian Packaging Previous page: Dev/apt-revoker Index page: Design Next page: Dev/About Debian Packaging APT Signing Key Folders and Other Development Notes

• Automatic Updates (developers)
• APT (dev)
• APT Pinning (dev)
• APT Repository (dev)
• apt-revoker (dev)

/etc/apt/trusted.gpg, /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d, /usr/share/keyrings

APT Keyring Folders

APT by default considers only signing keys in:

• file /etc/apt/trusted.gpg
• folder /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d

Signing keys in folder /usr/share/keyrings are ignored by default by APT, unless the signed-by keyword is used in APT sources files (i.e. in configuration file /etc/apt/sources.list or in configuration snippet drop-in folder /etc/apt/sources.list.d).

Example signed-by keyword use in one-line-style sources:

[signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/derivative.asc]

Example Signed-By keyword use in deb822-style sources:

Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/derivative.asc

Example of a complete one-line-style deb sources line with the signed-by keyword.

deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/derivative.asc] https://deb.kicksecure.com trixie main contrib non-free

Example of a complete deb822-style deb sources stanza with the signed-by keyword.

Types: deb
URIs: https://deb.kicksecure.com
Suites: trixie
Components: main contrib non-free
Enabled: yes
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/derivative.asc

Repository Migration

Background on Debian APT Origin and Label

When Debian's APT sees a repository for the first time, it notes its Origin and Label fields. Should these change, Debian will show a warning and not proceed using any repository with a changed Origin or Label until the user accepts the change using sudo apt update --allow-releaseinfo-change.

deb822-style sources files

The older one-line-style sources format has been deprecated and may be removed in the future. Starting in Kicksecure 18, the deb822-style format is used.

Numerous upstream projects have not yet migrated to the new format, sometimes necessitating forking projects and attempting to contribute the feature upstream later. Some upstream PRs and issues related to this:

• https://github.com/grml/grml-debootstrap/issues/203
• https://github.com/grml/grml-debootstrap/pull/351
• https://salsa.debian.org/live-team/live-build/-/merge_requests/436
• https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2025/09/msg00037.html
  • https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2025/09/msg00044.html Quote: "Please use a .pgp extension instead of .gpg (which is now just a backwards compatibility symlink that will eventually go away)."
• https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues/issues/10494

Forum Discussion

https://forums.whonix.org/t/e-repository-tor-https-deb-kicksecure-com-bullseye-inrelease-changed-its-origin-value-from-kicksecure-to-whonix/13810

See Also

• Dev/APT Pinning
• Dev/APT Repository
• signed-by keyword forum discussion

Footnotes

Dev/apt-revoker Design Dev/About Debian Packaging Previous page: Dev/apt-revoker Index page: Design Next page: Dev/About Debian Packaging

Kicksecure A secure by default operating system with the latest security research in place.

Dark mode

Follow us on social media

Supported by Power Up Privacy

Kicksecure is proudly supported until 2026 by Power Up Privacy, a privacy advocacy group that seeks to supercharge privacy projects with resources so they can complete their mission of making our world a better place. (Strictly subject to our sponsorship policy.)

At Kicksecure we value freedom and trust, supporting Open Source and Freedom Software

By using this website, you acknowledge you have read, understood, and agree to be bound by these agreements: Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy, E-Sign Consent, DMCA, Imprint 2012- 2026 ENCRYPTED SUPPORT LLC

Your support makes
all the difference!

We believe security software like Kicksecure needs to remain Open Source and independent. Would you help sustain and grow the project? Learn more about our 13 year success story and maybe DONATE!