gpg2 from console doesn't wait for passphrase...

[joe3]

I'm not sure how long this has been true on Sabayon as most of the time I've already run startx before I need to decrypt anything. And so usually run gpg from a "konsole" terminal window or an xterm. 99 percent of the time, my use of gpg consists of either encrypting a file our decrypting it in the form of

gpg --output PATHNAME.asc -e -r DSA_KEY_ID PATHNAME

-or-

gpg --output PATHNAME PATHNAME.asc

And when I do this from a Konsole or xterm it works.

Earlier today however, I had so little available time when I needed to extract a piece of info from an encrypted file which was my sole reason to boot my PC. I chose Sabayon from my list of five Linux Distros because using the nox kernel option it gets me from a cold start to a working login prompt very quickly. But when I tried to decrypt the file from tty1, I got this error:

Code: Select all

You need a passphrase to unlock the secret key for
user: "Joe(theWordy)Philbrook (JtWdyP) <jtwdyp@ttlc.net>"
1024-bit ELG key, ID 225FDC6D, created 2004-05-17 (main key ID 6C2163DE)

pinentry: cannot connect to X server
gpg-agent[8829]: can't connect to the PIN entry module: End of file
gpg-agent[8829]: command get_passphrase failed: No pinentry
gpg: problem with the agent: No pinentry
gpg: encrypted with 1024-bit ELG key, ID 225FDC6D, created 2004-05-17
      "Joe(theWordy)Philbrook (JtWdyP) <jtwdyp@ttlc.net>"
gpg: public key decryption failed: Operation cancelled
gpg: decryption failed: No secret key


I note also that my ~/.gnupg/gpg-agent.conf does have the "no-detach" option in it.

GPG is a CLI tool, I can't imagine why it should be dependent on X.

Any suggestions.