PGP v2.6 Fast Help

Contents

• Summary of PGP v2.6 user commands.
• Key management commands.
• Esoteric commands.
• Command options.

PGP user commands.

PGP Encryption with recipients key

To encrypt a plaintext file with the recipient's public key:

pgp -e textfile her_userid

Signature

To sign a plaintext file with your secret key:

pgp -s textfile [-u your_userid]

Ascii Signiture

To sign a plaintext file with your secret key and have the output readable to people without running PGP first:

pgp -sta textfile [-u your_userid]

Sign and encrypt

To sign a plaintext file with your secret key, and then encrypt it

with the recipient's public key:

pgp -es textfile her_userid [-u your_userid]

Conventional Encryption

To encrypt a plaintext file with just conventional cryptography, type: pgp -c textfile

Decrypting

To decrypt an encrypted file, or to check the signature integrity of a signed file: pgp ciphertextfile [-o plaintextfile]

Encrypting for multiple recipients

To encrypt a message for any number of multiple recipients: pgp -e textfile userid1 userid2 userid3

Key management commands

Generate key

To generate your own unique public/secret key pair: pgp -kg

Add key to ring

To add a public or secret key file's contents to your public or secret key ring: pgp -ka keyfile [keyring]

Copying a key

To extract (copy) a key from your public or secret key ring:

pgp -kx userid keyfile [keyring]

or: pgp -kxa userid keyfile [keyring]

Viewing your key ring

To view the contents of your public key ring:

pgp -kv[v] [userid] [keyring]

Viewing a key fingerprint

To view the "fingerprint" of a public key, to help verify it over the telephone with its owner:

pgp -kvc [userid] [keyring]

Checking key signitures

To view the contents and check the certifying signatures of your public key ring:

pgp -kc [userid] [keyring]

Editing ring id's and phrases

To edit the userid or pass phrase for your secret key:

pgp -ke userid [keyring]

Editing ring prarmaters

To edit the trust parameters for a public key:

pgp -ke userid [keyring]

Deleting a key

To remove a key or just a userid from your public key ring:

pgp -kr userid [keyring]

Certifiying a key

To sign and certify someone else's public key on your public key ring:

pgp -ks her_userid [-u your_userid] [keyring]

Deleting a key certification

To remove selected signatures from a userid on a keyring:

pgp -krs userid [keyring]

Key revokation

To permanently revoke your own key, issuing a key compromise certificate:

pgp -kd your_userid

Disabling a key

To disable or reenable a public key on your own public key ring:

pgp -kd userid

Esoteric commands:

Decrypt message leaving signiture

Decrypt a message leaving the signature intact:

pgp -d ciphertextfile

Create a separate signature certificate

To create a signature certificate that is detached from the document:

pgp -sb textfile [-u your_userid]

Detach signature from message

To detach a signature certificate from a signed message:

pgp -b ciphertextfile

Command options

command options (sometimes even spelling interesting words!):

Produce ciphertext

To produce a ciphertext file in ASCII radix-64 format, just add the

-a option when encrypting or signing a message or extracting a key:

pgp -sea textfile her_userid

or: pgp -kxa userid keyfile [keyring]

Delete file after encrpytion

To wipe out the plaintext file after producing the ciphertext file,

just add the -w (wipe) option when encrypting or signing a message:

pgp -sew message.txt her_userid

Convert to local text

To specify that a plaintext file contains ASCII text, not binary, and

should be converted to recipient's local text line conventions, add

the -t (text) option to other options:

pgp -seat message.txt her_userid

Display plain text

To view the decrypted plaintext output on your screen (like the

Unix-style "more" command), without writing it to a file, use

the -m (more) option while decrypting:

pgp -m ciphertextfile

Display only option

To specify that the recipient's decrypted plaintext will be shown

ONLY on her screen and cannot be saved to disk, add the -m option:

pgp -steam message.txt her_userid

Recover plain text file

To recover the original plaintext filename while decrypting, add

the -p option:

pgp -p ciphertextfile

Pipe Mode

To use a Unix-style filter mode, reading from standard input and

writing to standard output, add the -f option:

pgp -feast her_userid outputfile