Operations

Note

If you are encrypting files for yourself, use your email address associated with your public key as the recipient.

Import

If the public key is not your own and cannot be found on key servers, it must be manually imported.

#Import a public key from a file.
gpg --import {KEY FILE}

# Import a public key from a key server.
gpg --recv {KEYID}

Export

The public key can be exported as well for others to encrypt data for you.

Export public key for signing data.

gpg --homedir /some/custom/.gnupg --armor --export > my_public_key.gpg

Encrypt

Encrypt a file for a given recipient.

# Trust model always prevents GPG warnings about untrusted key recipients.
gpg --armor --batch --trust-model always --encrypt --recipient {GPGID} {FILE}

# Encrypt some text
echo -n "super_secret_server_stuff" | gpg --armor --batch --trust-model always --encrypt --recipient {GPGID}

Create a Detached Signature

This is used to validate that the GPG encrypted file has not been changed.

Create a detached signature for a given file.

gpg --detach-sign {FILE}.gpg

Validate File Using Detached Signature

# Import the public key if needed.
gpg --import {PUBLIC KEY}

# Verify the GPG encrypted file.
gpg --verify {FILE}.sig