Install

For the purpose of simplicity on this site, we’ll deal exclusively with using the GNU open source implementation of the OpenPGP protocol, GnuPG.

Mac

Macs come with a default command-line GPG installation, but you’ll want to upgrade to GPG2 for the latest bells and whistles. The easiest way to do so is to grab a copy of Homebrew and run the following:

$ brew install gpg2

If you prefer working with graphical interfaces you can install GPG Tools.

Key Generation

Issue the following command to begin generating a GnuPG key pair:

$ gpg --gen-key

This will take you through a couple of questions that will be used to configure your keys.

• Please select what kind of key you want: (1) RSA and RSA (default)
• What keysize do you want? 4096
• Key is valid for? 0
• Is this correct? y
• Real name: your real name
• Email address: [email protected]
• Comment: Optional comment that will be visible in your signature
• Change (N)ame, (C)omment, (E)mail or (O)kay/(Q)uit? O
• Enter passphrase: Enter a secure passphrase here (upper & lower case, digits, symbols)

At this point, GnuPG will begin to generate the keys which may take some time.