# Quick GPG guide

Note: If gpg2 gives you error about invalid/unknown/etc. command, use gpg instead.

## What do you need:?

### Linux (Debian based distributions)

You need at least package gnupg, but I recommend installing packages
icedove enigmail pinentry pinentry-curses pinentry-gtk2 pinentry-qt4 signing-party and gnupg2.

> # aptitude install gnupg gnupg2 icedove enigmail pinentry-curses pinentry-gtk2 pinentry-qt4 signing-party gnupg2

### Mac OS X

You need at least GPG-tools, but I also recommend you to install Thunderbird and Enigmail.

### Windows

You need at least GPG4Win, but I recommend installing Thunderbird and Enigmail too.

### Step 1

This depends are you generating a new key or importing old key.

#### Step 1: Generating a new key

Open terminal (or cmd.exe if you are using Windows) and run

> gpg2 --gen-key

Notes:

1. When you are asked for key size, enter the maximum size.

2. When you are asked for email address, leave it empty. We will add it later.

##### Adding new UIDs (User IDentities)

First you need to find out the ID of the key, which you just created. You can see it with two commands.

> gpg2 --list-keys

or 

> gpg2 --fingerprint

The second command also shows the key fingerprint which is usually used to identify the key. Note that you can see both keyid formats in fingerprint. The last eght characters in keyid are the short format and the last sixteen characters are the long format.
If you want to see the long keyid, run

> gpg2 --list-keys --keyid-format long

Now add the uid with the following commands:

> gpg2 --edit-key KEYID

and enter command:

> adduid

and you are asked for name and email address again. This time you can give them both.

If that UID which has only your first name isn't the first UID, select it by giving command, which is the number of the UID, for example:

> 2

and * appears to that UID to tell you that that UID is selected. Now give command

> primary

to make it the primary UID again.

Now you can exit from GPG with

> quit

and confirm to save changes with

> y

#### Step 1: Importing old key

You can import your old private key same way as you import public keys. This means:

> gpg2 --import key.asc

Where key.asc is the file, which contains the (private) key(s)

### Step 2: backing up the key

You need to know your keyid. I told you how to get it in "Adding new uids". To back up your private key, run

> gpg2 --export-secret-keys -a KEYID

and save the output of that command to file. If you are on Linux or Mac OS X, you can forward the output directly to file, with

> gpg2 --export-secret-keys -a KEYID > privatekey.asc

The previous command creates a file called "privatekey.asc", which contains the output of the first command.

### Step 3: Configuring gpg(2)

WRITE THIS LATER WITH COMPUTER!

### Step 4: Sharing your public key

There are two ways to share your key. I personally use and recommend them both.

### Without keyservers

If you have homepage, it's recommended that you put your key there. My key can be found