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What is GPG?#

GNU Privacy Guard (GnuPG o GPG)is an encryption and digital signature tool that implements the OpenPGP standard. GnuGPG allows you to encrypt and sign both data and communications (emails for example). It has a versatile key management system, along with access modules for all types of public key directories. Also known as GPG, it is a command line tool with functions for easy integration with other applications.

GPG encrypts messages using user-generated asymmetric individual key pairs. Public keys can be shared with other users in many ways, an example of this is by depositing them on key servers.

IMPORTANT: NEVER SHARE YOUR PRIVATE KEY, KEEP IT SECURELY AND ONLY FORWARD OR PUBLISH THE PUBLIC KEYS ON A SERVER.

GPG for macOS users#

There are two ways to install gpg on macOS:

We recommend installing gpg via Homebrew and using it via the terminal, e.g. iTerm.

Generate user key-pair#

gpg --gen-­key

Some questions must be answered in order to generate the key pair:

  • Key type. RSA-RSA is the default.
  • Expiration time: How long the key shoud be valid.
  • User data (Real name, email, comment) . This data is used to identify the key in public key servers and when it's sent to other users.
  • Password: It is possible to protect the key file with a password.

Export public key#

gpg ­­--armor ­--­output myname_public_key.asc ­­--export 'Name Surname'

Import public key#

gpg ­--­import john­doe.asc

We can check the list of public key in our databes with this command:

gpg ­­--list

Encript files#

gpg ­­--encrypt ­­--recipient 'Name Surname' file.txt

Decrypt files#

gpg --­­output file.txt --­­decrypt file.txt.gpg