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- ! .TH PGP 1 "PGP Version 2.6.3i"
- ! .\" NAME should be all caps, SECTION should be 1-8, maybe w/ subsection
- ! .\" other parms are allowed: see man(7), man(1)
- 1 PGP
- Pretty Good Privacy encryption system (PGP Version 2.6.3i).
-
- SYNOPSIS
-
- $ pgp [options] pgpfile
-
- $ pgp -e [options] file user
-
- DOCUMENTATION
-
- Full documentation path: PGP$LIBRARY:[DOC]
- Read PGPDOC1.TXT and PGPDOC2.TXT before to start using this product.
-
- "THE BEGINNER'S GUIDE" and the "Frequently Asked Questions" can be found
- in the same directory, the file names are: PGPBG11.ASC and PGP.FAQ
- !
- 2 Description
- PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) is a public key encryption package to protect
- E-mail and data files. It lets you communicate securely with people
- you've never met, with no secure channels needed for prior exchange of
- keys. It's well featured and fast, with sophisticated key management,
- digital signatures, data compression, and good ergonomic design. If you
- really want to learn how to use it properly, it's best to read the full
- documentation that comes with the system, which is very complete. This
- is a "quick start" guide and reference manual; it is necessarily
- incomplete, and assumes you are already familiar with most of the basic
- concepts, including the concepts behind public key cryptography.
- !
- 2 Terminology
- user id: an ascii string used to identify a user.
-
- User IDs tend to look like "John Q. Public <jqp@xyzcorp.com>"; please
- try sticking to that format. When giving a user id to PGP, you may
- specify any unique (case-insensitive) substring. E.g. john, or
- jqp@xyz.
-
- pass phrase: the secret string used to conventionally encipher your
- private key. It's important that this be kept secret.
-
- keyring: a file containing a set of public or secret keys.
-
- Default names for public and secret rings are "pubring.pgp" and
- "secring.pgp" respectively.
-
- ascii armor: the ascii radix 64 format PGP uses for transmitting messages
- over channels like E-Mail; similar in concept to uuencoding.
- !
- 2 Command_summary
-
- To see a quick command usage summary for PGP, just type:
-
- $ pgp -h
-
- To encrypt a plaintext file with the recipient's public key:
-
- $ pgp -e textfile her_userid [other userids]
-
- To sign a plaintext file with your secret key:
-
- $ pgp -s textfile [-u your_userid]
-
- To sign a plaintext file with your secret key, and then encrypt it with
- the recipient's public key:
-
- $ pgp -es textfile her_userid [other userids] [-u your_userid]
-
- To create a signature certificate that is detached from the document:
-
- $ pgp -sb textfile [-u your_userid]
-
- To encrypt a plaintext file with just conventional cryptography, type:
-
- $ pgp -c textfile
-
- To decrypt an encrypted file, or to check the signature integrity of a
- signed file:
-
- $ pgp ciphertextfile [-o plaintextfile]
-
- To see a quick summary of PGP's key-management commands, just type:
-
- $ pgp -k
-
- To generate your own unique public/secret key pair:
-
- $ pgp -kg
-
- To add a public or secret key file's contents to your public or secret
- key ring:
-
- $ pgp -ka keyfile [keyring]
-
- To remove a key from your public key ring:
-
- $ pgp -kr userid [keyring]
-
- To extract (copy) a key from your public or secret key ring:
-
- $ pgp -kx[a] userid keyfile [keyring]
-
- To view the contents of your public key ring:
-
- $ pgp -kv[v] [userid] [keyring]
-
- To view the "fingerprint" of a public key, to help verify it over the
- telephone with its owner:
-
- $ pgp -kvc [userid] [keyring]
-
- To view the contents and check the certifying signatures of your public
- key ring:
-
- $ pgp -kc [userid] [keyring]
-
- To edit the pass phrase for or add a userid to your secret key:
-
- $ pgp -ke userid [keyring]
-
- To edit the trust parameters for a public key:
-
- $ pgp -ke userid [keyring]
-
- To remove a key or just a userid from your public key ring:
-
- $ pgp -kr userid [keyring]
-
- To sign and certify someone else's public key on your public key ring:
-
- $ pgp -ks her_userid [-u your_userid] [keyring]
-
- To remove selected signatures from a userid on a keyring:
-
- $ pgp -krs userid [keyring]
-
-
- Command options that can be used in combination with other command
- options (sometimes even spelling interesting words):
-
- 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
-
- $ pgp -kxa userid keyfile [keyring]
-
- 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
-
- 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
-
- 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
-
- 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
-
- To recover the original plaintext filename while decrypting, add the -p
- option:
-
- $ pgp -p ciphertextfile
-
- To use a Unix-style filter mode, reading from standard input and writing
- to standard output, add the -f option:
-
- $ pgp -feast her_userid <inputfile >outputfile
- !
- 2 The_Config_File
- PGP uses a configuration database that is stored in the file
- "config.txt"; please see the manual for complete details. Blank lines and
- lines beginning with "#" are comments. Options take string, numeric, or
- boolean values. The boolean values are "on" and "off". These options can
- also be specified on the command line, using a syntax such as +armor=on.
- Keywords can be abbreviated to unique prefixes. Keywords are not
- case-sensitive. "=on" is assumed for boolean options if nothing is
- specified. Some highlights:
- 3 MYNAME
- MYNAME - Default User ID for Making Signatures
-
- Default setting: MYNAME = ""
-
- The configuration parameter MYNAME specifies the default user ID to
- use to select the secret key for making signatures. If MYNAME is not
- defined, the most recent secret key you installed on your secret key
- ring is used. The user may also override this setting by specifying a
- user ID on the PGP command line with the -u option.
- 3 TEXTMODE
- TEXTMODE - Assuming Plaintext is a Text File
-
- Default setting: TEXTMODE = off
-
- The configuration parameter TEXTMODE is equivalent to the -t command
- line option. If enabled, it causes PGP to assume the plaintext is a
- text file, not a binary file, and converts it to "canonical text"
- before encrypting it. Canonical text has a carriage return and a
- linefeed at the end of each line of text.
-
- This mode is automatically turned off if PGP detects that the
- plaintext file contains 8-bit binary data. Thus, it is safe to leave
- enabled at all times.
- 3 ARMOR
- ARMOR - Enable ASCII Armor Output
-
- Default setting: ARMOR = off
-
- The configuration parameter ARMOR is equivalent to the -a command
- line option. If enabled, it causes PGP to emit ciphertext or keys in
- ASCII Radix-64 format suitable for transporting through E-mail
- channels. Output files are named with the ".asc" extension.
-
- If you tend to use PGP mostly for E-mail, it may be a good idea to
- enable this parameter.
- 3 ARMORLINES
- ARMORLINES - Size of ASCII Armor Multipart Files
-
- Default setting: ARMORLINES = 720
-
- For large ASCII armor files, PGP splits them into files named
- ".asc1", ".asc2", ".asc3", etc. so as not to choke mailers, which
- typically starts to happen around 50,000 bytes. This specifies the
- number of (64-byte) lines to place in each file. If set to 0, PGP
- will not split ASCII armor files.
- 3 CLEARSIG
- CLEARSIG - Enable Clear-Signed Output
-
- Default setting: CLEARSIG = on
-
- Normally, a signed and ASCII-armored PGP message is gibberish, even
- though the text is not encrypted. This prevents munging by mailers,
- but requires PGP to simply read the message.
-
- If CLEARSIG is enabled, then when signing and ASCII-armoring a text
- file, PGP uses a different format that includes the plaintext in
- human-readable form. Lines beginning with "-" are quoted with "\-\ ".
- To cope with some of the stupider mailers in the world, lines
- beginning with "From" are also quoted, and trailing whitespace on
- lines is stripped. PGP will remove the quoting if you use it to
- decrypt the message, but the trailing whitespace is not recovered.
- This is still useful enough to be enabled by default.
- 3 ENCRYPTTOSELF
- ENCRYPTTOSELF - Add MYNAME to Recipients List
-
- Default setting: ENCRYPTTOSELF = off
-
- If this is emabled, MYNAME will be implcitly added to the list of
- recipients for any message you encrypt with a public key. Since in
- this case, MYNAME is looked up in the public keyring, it is important
- that it unambiguously specify the right key.
- 3 LANGUAGE
- LANGUAGE - Language To Use
-
- Default setting: LANGUAGE = en
-
- If you want to use a different language, and translations are in the
- language.txt file, setting this option will cause PGP's messages to
- appear in a different language. If a translation for a message is not
- available, it appears in english.
-
- If you look at the supplied language.txt file, the format should be
- obvious.
- 3 CHARSET
- CHARSET - Character Set
-
- Default setting: CHARSET = noconv
-
- PGP tries to translate all text-mode messages into the ISO Latin-1
- alphabet, or the KOI-8 alphabet for cyrillic alphabets. This setting
- indicates the native character set, so PGP can do the translation.
- Options are noconv, latin1 or koi8, indicating that no translation
- should be done; cp850, indicating that IBM PC code page 850 mappings
- should be used; ascii, indicating that a minimal ASCII subset should
- be used; and alt_codes, indicating that the IBM PC alt codes should
- be used for the cyrillic alphabet.
- 3 KEEPBINARY
- KEEPBINARY - Preserve Intermediate .pgp File
-
- Default setting: KEEPBINARY = off
-
- If KEEPBINARY is enabled, then PGP will produce a .pgp file in
- addition to a .asc file when ASCII armor is enabled.
- 3 TMP
- TMP - Temporary file directory
-
- Default setting: TMP = ""
-
- PGP produces temporary files while decrypting a message. This is the
- directory they are stored in. If not specified in the config file,
- the environment variable TMP is used, or the current directory. It
- helps security somewhat if this is not a publicly-readable directory.
- A local file system is also a good idea.
- 3 COMPRESS
- COMPRESS - Compress Plaintext Before Encrypting
-
- Default setting: COMPRESS = on
-
- PGP usually compresses the plaintext before encrypting it, so it will
- have less to encrypt and the file you send will be smaller. It also
- makes cryptanalysis harder. This is usually only turned off for
- debugging purposes.
- 3 PAGER
- PAGER - Select Shell Command to Display Pager Output
-
- Default setting: PAGER = ""
-
- If set, PGP uses this program to view files when the -m option is
- specified. By default, PGP uses a simple builtin pager.
- 3 SHOWPASS
- SHOWPASS - Echo Pass Phrase During Entry
-
- Default setting: SHOWPASS = off
-
- If someone is unable to type a long pass phrase reliably without
- seeing it, this can be turned on, at the cost of security.
- 3 INTERACTIVE
- INTERACTIVE - Prompt Before Adding Each Key
-
- Default setting: INTERACTIVE = off
-
- By default, when given a file containing new keys, PGP asks if you
- would like to add them to your public key ring. Since adding keys
- does not imply that you trust them, adding more just wakes up space.
- If this option is set, PGP asks about each key in a key file.
- 3 VERBOSE
- VERBOSE - Level of Detail Printed
-
- Default setting: VERBOSE = 1
-
- When set to 0, PGP only prints messages that are necessary or
- indicate an error. When set to 2, PGP prints a significant amount of
- debugging information describing what it's doing. Values above 2 have
- no effect.
- 3 PUBRING
- PUBRING - Public Key Ring Location
-
- Default setting: PUBRING = $PGPPATH/pubring.pgp
-
- This is the path name to the public key ring to use.
- 3 SECRING
- SECRING - Secret Key Ring Location
-
- Default setting: SECRING = $PGPPATH/secring.pgp
-
- This is the path name to the secret key ring to use.
- 3 BAKRING
- BAKRING - Backup Secret Key Ring
-
- Default setting: BAKRING = ""
-
- If this is set, when checking your key ring (pgp -kc), PGP will
- compare the normal secret key ring against the given backup copy,
- usually kept on write-protected removable media. This is to protect
- against wholesale modifications to your key rings in a spoofing
- attack.
- 3 RANDSEED
- RANDSEED - Random Number Seed File
-
- Default setting: RANDSEED = $PGPPATH/randseed.bin
-
- This is the path to a random seed file which is part of PGP's random
- number generation algorithm, used to generate session keys. While PGP
- goes to great lengths to use every available source of randomness in
- generating session keys, this file is part of the process and
- protecting it from disclosure is desirable.
- 3 COMMENT
- COMMENT - ASCII Armor Comment
-
- Default setting: COMMENT = ""
-
- If set to a non-empty string, the value of this variable is printed
- in the header of ASCII armor files, preceded by "Comment: ".
- 3 LEGAL_KLUDGE
- LEGAL_KLUDGE - Incompatibility with PGP versions prior to 2.6
-
- Default setting: LEGAL_KLUDGE = on
-
- If set, PGP will generate keys and messages in a new format that
- cannot be read by PGP 2.5 and earlier versions.
- !
- 2 Key_certification
- PGP employs a system where users specify trusted users who may sign other
- people's public keys. It is important that you understand how this
- mechanism works; a full description is in the manual.
-
- Important: The manual also describes how to generate and send a "key
- compromise" certificate that tells readers that your private
- key has been compromised. If your key has been compromised,
- please read the manual section on key compromise certificates
- and how to create them; the faster you send out a key
- compromise certificate, the smaller the window of opportunity
- for "bad guys" to send forged messages.
- !
- 2 Important_Hints
- PGP automatically tries compressing your input file; there is little
- point in precompressing input for transmission.
-
- PGP "ascii armor" is only needed on the outer transmitted message; as an
- example, if you are, say, sending a public key to someone else and you
- are for some reason signing it, simply armor the outer message; it's
- better to sign the binary form of the key.
- !
- 2 Foreign_Languages
- PGP is easily customized for foreign language help and error messages;
- it has been translated into a number of non-english languages. See the
- manual for details on the file "language.txt".
- !
- 2 Environment
- PGP uses several special files for its purposes, such as your standard
- key ring files "pubring.pgp" and "secring.pgp", the random number seed
- file "randseed.bin", the PGP configuration file "config.txt", and the
- foreign language string translation file "language.txt". These special
- files can be kept in any directory, by setting the environment variable
- "PGPPATH" to the desired pathname. If PGPPATH remains undefined, these
- special files are assumed to be in the current directory.
-
- Normally, PGP prompts the user to type a pass phrase whenever PGP needs a
- pass phrase to unlock a secret key. But it is possible to store the pass
- phrase in an environment variable from your operating system's command
- shell. The environment variable PGPPASS can be used to hold the pass
- phrase that PGP attempts to use first. If the pass phrase stored in
- PGPPASS is incorrect, PGP recovers by prompting the user for the correct
- pass phrase. This dangerous feature makes your life more convenient if
- you have to regularly deal with a large number of incoming messages
- addressed to your secret key, by eliminating the need for you to
- repeatedly type in your pass phrase every time you run PGP.
- This is a very dangerous feature; on UNIX it is trivial to read someone
- else's environment using the ps(1) command. If you are contemplating
- using this feature, be sure to read the sections "How to Protect Secret
- Keys from Disclosure" and "Exposure on Multi-user Systems" in the full
- PGP manual.
-
- If the environment variable PGPPASSFD is defined, it must have a numeric
- value, which PGP uses as a file descriptor number to read a pass phrase
- from. This is done before anything else, so it can be combined with an
- input file on standard input. This is mainly for use by shell scripts,
- since under Unix it is difficult to read the contents of other people's
- pipes.
- !
- 2 Return_Value
- PGP returns a 0 to the shell on success, and a nonzero error code on
- failure. See the source code for details on nonzero status return values.
- !
- 2 Files
- *.pgp ciphertext, signature, or key file
- *.asc ascii armor file
- /usr/local/lib/config.txt system-wide configuration file
- $PGPPATH/config.txt per-user configuration file
- $PGPPATH/pubring.pgp public key ring
- $PGPPATH/secring.pgp secret key ring
- $PGPPATH/randseed.bin random number seed file
- /usr/local/lib/pgp/language.txt
- $PGPPATH/language.txt foreign language translation file
- /usr/local/lib/pgp/pgp.hlp
- $PGPPATH/pgp/pgp.hlp online help text file
- /usr/local/lib/pgp/pgpkey.hlp
- $PGPPATH/pgp/pgpkey.hlp online key-management help text file
- !
- 2 Note
- The manual is really good, and it's really important in the long run that
- you read it. PGP may be an unpickable lock, but you have to put in in the
- door properly to keep out intruders. So read the manual and find out how!
- !
- 2 Caveats
- It is impossible to overemphasize the importance of protecting your
- secret key. Anyone gaining access to it can forge messages from you or
- read mail addressed to you. Be very cautious in using PGP on any
- multi-user unix system.
-
- PGP is believed by its authors to be the most secure cryptographic
- software available to the public when used as directed, but then again
- everyone always claims their pet encryption system is secure. Read the
- section in the manual on "Trusting Snake Oil" and the section on
- "Vulnerabilities" for caveats.
- !
- 2 Diagnostics
-
- Mostly self explanatory.
- !
- 2 Bugs
- PGP was initially written for the PC, and behaves very PCish. In
- particular, its automagic file selection, file extensions, and the like
- all make it somewhat alien in the UNIX environment.
-
- This man page needs to be updated to reflect all the latest features.
- !
- 2 Authors
- Originally written by Philip R. Zimmermann. Later augmented by a cast of
- thousands.
- !
- 2 Legal_Restrictions
- PGP 2.6.3i is freeware, and may be used for non-commercial purposes only.
- This version of PGP is illegal to use within the USA but is fine
- elsewhere in the world. US users should get a copy of MIT PGP 2.6.2
- instead, or purchase the commercial version 2.7.1 from ViaCrypt.
-
- For detailed information on PGP licensing, distribution, copyrights,
- patents, trademarks, liability limitations, and export controls, see the
- "Legal Issues" section in the "PGP User's Guide, Volume II: Special
- Topics".
-
-
-