Gpg command to encrypt a file

The sender have to know his own passphrase which gives him access to his private key that he will use to sign encrypted messages. To encrypt multiples files, there two parameters that we use: --encrypt-files or --multifile obligatory followed by --encrypt. You can see that we don't use --sign parameter. During my test, it seems doesn't work together.

When you encrypt a file with the public key of your recipient, you send it to him by a communication way. To decrypt the received file, he will use the private key referenced by his own passphrase corresponding to his own public key that you have used to encrypt the file. To decrypt an encrypted file into digital content or not, the command is the same as you see below. To encrypt and sign your email, you can write the message to a file, use gpg to encrypt and sign it with the methods that we have seen and you could send it by the normal way.

Your receiver must have your public key in order to decrypt your message. You can also install enigmail which can be used to encrypt email from thunderbird using the public key of the recipient that you have. Now that the setup is completed, you can write a new message to your recipient with thunderbird.

You will see that encryption will be automatically activated when you will choose the same recipient for email. Now you know how to encrypt files and sign a document using gpg in linux. For good security, you must verify that the public key you receive exactly come from a person you know before adding it to your public keyring.

Hi Antonino, You need to try some kind of loops, otherwise it won't allow structure of files. New User Orientation. Logging In. Local Transfers. Remote Transfers. Remote File Transfer Commands. Checking File Integrity. Shift Transfer Tool Overview. Running Jobs with PBS. Post-Processing Data. Systems Reference. Security and Policies. Cloud Computing. As a systems engineer, I do most of my work on remote servers, accessible via command line interface.

Naturally, I find it easier to use the command line version of GPG to directly encrypt and decrypt documents.

Conceptually, both use the same approach to cryptography i. However, each is uniquely different in its implementation. What follows is a quick primer on how to install the GPG command line tools, as well as a list of basic commands you are most likely to need. GPG can be installed in a number of different ways. The instructions here will install the core GPG command line tools, which are intended to be used in a terminal. The easiest way to install the GPG command line tools on your Mac is to first install Homebrew , a package management system that makes thousands of software packages available for install on your Mac.

What follows is a very brief introduction to command line usage of GPG. It is intended only to get you started. If you expect to use GPG more extensively, I strongly advise you to read more documentation see the Links section below.

GPG is powerful encryption software, but it can also be easy to learn — once you understand some basics. GPG uses a method of encryption known as public key cryptography, which provides a number of advantages and benefits. However, to obtain these advantages, a minimal level of complexity is required to make it all work. For an overview of how public key cryptography works, read the Introduction to Cryptography link at the bottom of this post.

In all examples below, text that you will need to replace with your own values e. To get started with GPG, you first need to generate your key pair. That is, you will generate both a private and a public key with a single command. Enter your name and email address at the prompts, but accept the default options otherwise. The first key is your private or secret key. You must keep this private key safe at all times, and you must not share it with anyone.

The private key is protected with a password. Try to make the password as long as possible, but something you will not forget. For the same reason, you should also make a backup copy of your private key. The second key is your public key, which you can safely share with other people.