4 Generating a Key-pair

The first step to use GPG is to generate a key-pair. You can do this using the following interactive command:

gpg --gen-key

Be sure to perform this step on a computer that is secure because the private key will be generated as a result. If you perform this step as a regular user on a computer that is managed by someone else, the generated private key can be accessed by the system administrator.

This command will ask you to answer several questions.

 4.1 Key type
 4.2 Key size
 4.3 Expiration date
 4.4 User ID
 4.5 Passphrase
 4.6 Where are the key files?