At this point, if you’ve read through the Encryption article series, you’ve got a pretty good idea of what encryption does, and how it works. So what else is there left to cover? This is the “Skip to the end” part of the series… I’m just going to show you step-by-step how to set up usable GPG encrypted mail in Linux. No fuss, no hassle.
You only need two programs to do this, but a third (key manager) will make it easier.
First: install GPG for your distro of Linux. If you’re running Ubuntu or Debian, then
sudo apt-get install gpg
But whatever you use to manage software for your system, you should be able to find “GPG” and install what it needs.
Second, you need to create a new key pair (public and private). Make sure you use an email address that will not disappear in a year or two! This email address is your key’s form of identification.
gpg –gen-key
This will start the key generation process. Just follow the instructions, the defaults will work fine. Come up with a fairly long password… and DO NOT forget it!
Third, install some sort of email client with GPG plugin support. I use Mozilla Thunderbird with the Enigmail add-on. I also use a program called Kgpg to manage my keys. It runs in the tray and lets me encrypt/decrypt things on the clipboard. Not necessary, just makes things much easier.
Once you’ve installed your mail client, it should automatically pick up your GPG key (it’s set to import your local GPG keys automatically) and you can then either send your public key to your friends, post it to your website, or even upload it to a key server. Most key management programs have a feature that lets you upload your public key to an internet keyserver.
And that’s it. You’re done! When you send mail, just use the OpenGPG menu to find the recipient’s email address, and if they have one on a keyserver, it will automatically retrieve their public key and encrypt the message to them. Likewise, it will automatically decrypt messages sent to you if you want.
Easy cheesy!
