GPG
Table of Contents
1 Introduction
GnuPG is an implementation of the OpenPGP standard. It enables the encryption of data and features a versatile key management system. At its core, gpg is a command line tool, it can be used with the gpg command.
A public key consists of the public portion of the master signing key, the public portions of the subordinate signing and encryption subkeys, and a set of user IDs used to associate the public key with a real person.
2 CLI
We can generate a new key pair with:
gpg --gen-key gpg --full-generate-key # Allows choice of key size, expiration, etc
Now if we call:
gpg -k # Equivalent to the following commands gpg --list-keys gpg --list-public-keys
We will be met with something along the following lines, which show information about keys on your public keyring:
/home/laurencewarne/.gnupg/pubring.gpg
--------------------------------------
pub rsa3072 2019-02-13 [SC] [expires: 2021-02-12]
A3500FD11FFBF3E0D2B1E2FB43ECFD79C3A76493
uid [ultimate] Laurence Warne <laurencewarne@gmail.com>
sub rsa3072 2019-02-13 [E] [expires: 2021-02-12]
pub rsa2048 2018-11-09 [SC]
9129AB98125EAC18C65DBF2964D3012D80EE3190
uid [ unknown] John Smith <ragnarok89@yahoo.com>
sub rsa2048 2018-11-09 [E]
Note only public keys are listed here. The first column here denotes the type of the key.
2.1 Fingerprints
The long strings are the key fingerprints. A fingerprint is calculated from a constant, the packet length and finally a part of the public key packet (see this stack overflow post for more details). To see the fingerprint of a key:
gpg --fingerprint laurencewarne@gmail.com
Closely related (but not shown), is the ID of a key (pair), which just denotes the lowest 64 bits of the key's fingerprint.
2.2 Subkeys
In the first column of the cmd output, 'sub' indicates the described key is a subkey, of the master signing key pair displayed in the 'pub' column. Note to display the fingerprints of subkeys, call:
gpg --list-keys --with-subkey-fingerprints
When you decrypt a document with your private key, you are most likely using a private encryption subkey to do so, in place of your master signing key. The characters in square brackets shown in the output correspond to the following:
2.2.1 Key roles:
| Constant | Character | Explanation |
|---|---|---|
| PUBKEYUSAGESIG | S | Key is good for signing |
| PUBKEYUSAGECERT | C | Key is good for certifying other signatures |
| PUBKEYUSAGEENC | E | Key is good for encryption |
| PUBKEYUSAGEAUTH | A | Key is good for authentication |
3 Editing Keys
We can interact with the keys on our keyring using:
gpg --edit-key laurencewarne@gmail.com
This will open a little interpreter from which we can add a key to our public key (We will then be prompted to describe what the subkey will be used for):
gpg> addkey
State how much we 'trust' a key:
gpg> trust
4 Digital Signatures
A digital signature serves the same purpose as a hand-written signature.