Import/Export key pair

David Shaw dshaw@jabberwocky.com
Tue Jan 29 23:49:01 2002


On Tue, Jan 29, 2002 at 02:24:19PM -0800, Olivier Pasco wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I have not found in the documentation a way to save my key pair in order
> to use it on another computer. Do I have just to copy the files from my
> .gnupg directory ?

  gpg --export my_key -o my_public_key.gpg
  gpg --export-secret-key my_key -o my_secret_key.gpg

Copy my_public_key.gpg and my_secret_key.gpg over, and --import them.
If you are using the current version of GnuPG (1.0.6) or earlier, you
need to set --allow-secret-key-import as well:

  gpg --import my_public_key.gpg
  gpg --allow-secret-key-import --import my_secret_key.gpg

Theoretically you could copy the files from the .gnupg directory, but
this is not a good idea for various reasons (it may not work in the
future being high on the list).  --export and --import is the proper
way to do this.

David

-- 
   David Shaw  |  dshaw@jabberwocky.com  |  WWW http://www.jabberwocky.com/
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
   "There are two major products that come out of Berkeley: LSD and UNIX.
      We don't believe this to be a coincidence." - Jeremy S. Anderson