GnuPG

Summary #

tags

GNU

related: SSH

The GNU Privacy Guard (GnuPG) GnuPG is a complete and free implementation of the OpenPGP standard as defined by RFC4880 (also known as PGP).

gnupg, Debian package #

GNU privacy guard - a free PGP replacement GnuPG is GNU’s tool for secure communication and data storage. It can be used to encrypt data and to create digital signatures. It includes an advanced key management facility and is compliant with the proposed OpenPGP Internet standard as described in RFC4880.

This package contains the full suite of GnuPG tools for cryptographic communications and data storage.

gnupg, macOS package #

brew install gnupg

gpg-agent #

ref

• Gpg-agent is a program that runs in the background (a daemon) and stores GPG secret keys in memory, like ssh-agent.
• When a GPG process needs the key, it contacts the running gpg-agent program through a socket and requests the key.
• If the agent process has the key, it provides it to gpg.
• If it doesn’t, it attempts to load the encrypted key from your keyring, and prompts you for the key’s passphrase.
• Once the agent has obtained the decrypted key, it passes it to the gpg process. In addition to GPG keys, Gpg-agent can similarly store SSH keys and provide them to SSH processes, like the ssh-agent program that comes with SSH.

The main point of using a key agent is so that you don’t have to type your passphrase every single time you use your key. The agent keeps the key in memory from one time to the next. GPG itself can’t do that because the process terminates once it’s done its job.