Cheatsheets/GPG_Cheatsheet.md

GPG cheatsheet

Key Management

• Generate a new GPG key pair:

```bash gpg --full-generate-key ```

• List all keys in your GPG keyring:

```bash gpg --list-keys ```

• List all the secret keys in your GPG keyring:

```bash gpg --list-secret-keys ```

Message Encryption and Decryption

• Encrypt a message:

```bash gpg -e -u "your-email@example.com" -r "recipient@example.com" message.txt This creates message.txt.gpg. ```

• Decrypt a message:

```bash gpg -o decrypted-message.txt -d message.txt.gpg ```

• This creates decrypted-message.txt.

GPG Folder Encryption Cheat Sheet

Encrypting a Folder

1. Create a tarball from the folder you want to encrypt:

   Replace /path/to/folder_to_encrypt with the path to your folder and archive.tar.gz with the desired name for your tarball.

   ```bash tar -czvf archive.tar.gz /path/to/folder_to_encrypt ```

2. Encrypt the tarball using GPG:

   Replace your-email@example.com with your email and archive.tar.gz with your tarball's name. This will create an encrypted file named archive.tar.gz.gpg.

   ```bash gpg -e -r your-email@example.com archive.tar.gz ```

Decrypting a Folder

1. Decrypt the GPG file to a tarball:

   This will decrypt the archive.tar.gz.gpg file back to archive.tar.gz.

   ```bash gpg -o archive.tar.gz -d archive.tar.gz.gpg ```

2. Extract the tarball to the original folder:

   This will extract the contents of the tarball to the current directory.

   ```bash tar -xzvf archive.tar.gz ```

Please note that the person performing the decryption and extraction will need the GPG private key that corresponds to the public key used to encrypt the file.

Encrypting a message for yourself: [Different Method]

1. Generate a Key Pair: If you haven't already, you'll need to generate a GPG key pair. You can do this with the -gen-key option:

   ```bash gpg --gen-key ```

   Follow the prompts to set your name, email address, and passphrase.

2. Encrypt the Message: You can now encrypt a message with your public key. For example, to encrypt a message in a file named message.txt, you can use the following command:

   ```bash gpg -e -u "Your Name" -r "Your Name" message.txt ```

   Replace "Your Name" with the name you used when generating your key pair. This will create an encrypted file named message.txt.gpg.

3. Decrypt the Message: To decrypt the message, you can use the gpg command with the d option:

   ```bash gpg -d message.txt.gpg ```

   You'll be asked for the passphrase you used when generating your key pair.

Encrypting a message for someone else:

1. Import Their Public Key: Before you can encrypt a message for someone else, you'll need their GPG public key. Once you have it, you can import it with the -import option:

   ```bash gpg --import theirkey.gpg ```

   Replace "theirkey.gpg" with the filename of their public key.

2. Encrypt the Message: You can now encrypt a message with their public key. For example, to encrypt a message in a file named message.txt, you can use the following command:

   ```bash gpg -e -u "Your Name" -r "Their Name" message.txt ```

   Replace "Your Name" with your name and "Their Name" with the name associated with their public key. This will create an encrypted file named message.txt.gpg.

The recipient will then be able to decrypt the message using their private key.

Exporting & Importing Keys

Exporting Your Public Key:

1. List your keys to find the one you want to export:

   ```bash gpg --list-keys ```

2. Once you've identified the key you want to export (it's usually your email address or name), use the -export option with the a (armor) flag to export it to a file:

   ```bash gpg --export -a "Your Name" > public.key ```

   Replace "Your Name" with the name or email associated with the key you want to export. This will create a file named public.key containing your public key.