keyserver timed out when trying to add a GPG public key

Question

I am trying to add a public key for installing a program with CPG. But I am pretty new to this but every command I found gave me the same error:

gpg --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 94558F59
gpg: requesting key 94558F59 from hkp server keyserver.ubuntu.com
gpg: keyserver timed out
gpg: keyserver receive failed: keyserver error

How is this possible it seems that the I am behind some kind of blockade which makes it impossible to establish a connection to the key server. I looked into many OP questions and tried all commands I could find but nothing worked. Anyone had this problem before?

Answer 1

This is usually caused by your firewall blocking the port 11371. You could unblock the port in your firewall. In case you don't have access to the firewall you could either:

1. Force it to use port 80 instead of 11371

   gpg --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 --recv-keys 94558F59
   

2. Alternatively

   • Find and open the key from the key server.
   • Copy it's contents into a text file.
   • Go to System Tool > Preferences > Software Sources > Authentication > Add key, and select the text file created.

Answer 2

sudo gpg --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 --recv-keys SOMEKEY

Answer 3

This worked for me:

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys AKEYXXX

Answer 4

I encountered same problem when I was trying to add a GPG key behind a proxy. The solution to my problem was to add the --keyserver-options in the command:

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver-options http-proxy=http://USER:PASSWORD@PROXY_URL:PORT/ --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys GPG_KEY

Answer 5

Try getting your key from another server (worked for me):

gpg --keyserver hkp://keys.gnupg.net --recv-keys 94558F59

or

gpg --keyserver hkp://pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys 94558F59

Answer 6

I'm seeing this on one of two identical boxes running ansible deployments against an ubuntu 14.04 image. In fact, it had previously worked for app-infra-1 but at some point it began to fail. The fact that it succeeded on app-infra-2 freshly recreated suggests it is a corruption on app-infra-1 or a bug in the detection and reporting of apt-key adv.

I tried deleting the key using apt-key del but I continue to get the same error.

changed: [app-infra-2] => {"changed": true, "item": "", "repo": "ppa:webupd8team/java", "state": "present"}
failed: [app-infra-1] => {"cmd": "apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 7B2C3B0889BF5709A105D03AC2518248EEA14886", "failed": true, "item": "", "rc": 2}
stderr: gpg: requesting key EEA14886 from hkp server keyserver.ubuntu.com
gpg: keyserver timed out
gpg: keyserver receive failed: keyserver error

stdout: Executing: gpg --ignore-time-conflict --no-options --no-default-keyring --homedir /tmp/tmp.2zqQuFdBjg --no-auto-check-trustdb --trust-model always --keyring /etc/apt/trusted.gpg --primary-keyring /etc/apt/trusted.gpg --keyring /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/puppetlabs-keyring.gpg --recv-keys --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 7B2C3B0889BF5709A105D03AC2518248EEA14886

msg: gpg: requesting key EEA14886 from hkp server keyserver.ubuntu.com
gpg: keyserver timed out
gpg: keyserver receive failed: keyserver error

In the end, since it's a vm, my solution was to re-build it with vagrant.

Answer 7

For me it was required to add ENV statements into my docker file. E.g.

ENV  http_proxy "http://[yourproxy]:[port]/"
ENV  https_proxy "http://[yourproxy]:[port]/"