How to generate your Public and Private keys gnupg: generate your public and private keys for symmetric encryption $ gpg --full-generate-key Script started on Mon 14 Aug 2017 16:05:04 ACST gpg (GnuPG) 2.1.18; Copyright (C) 2017 Free Software Foundation, Inc. This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law. Please select what kind of key you want: (1) RSA and RSA (default) (2) DSA and Elgamal (3) DSA (sign only) (4) RSA (sign only) Your selection? 1 RSA keys may be between 1024 and 4096 bits long. What keysize do you want? (2048) 2048 Requested keysize is 2048 bits Please specify how long the key should be valid. 0 = key does not expire = key expires in n days w = key expires in n weeks m = key expires in n months y = key expires in n years Key is valid for? (0) 0 Key does not expire at all Is this correct? (y/N) y GnuPG needs to construct a user ID to identify your key. Real name: Real Name Email address: me@world.net Comment: Sample Only You selected this USER-ID: "Real Name (Sample Only) " Change (N)ame, (C)omment, (E)mail or (O)kay/(Q)uit? o We need to generate a lot of random bytes. It is a good idea to perform some other action (type on the keyboard, move the mouse, utilize the disks) during the prime generation; this gives the random number generator a better chance to gain enough entropy. We need to generate a lot of random bytes. It is a good idea to perform some other action (type on the keyboard, move the mouse, utilize the disks) during the prime generation; this gives the random number generator a better chance to gain enough entropy. gpg: key 68F76554ABDD334C marked as ultimately trusted gpg: revocation certificate stored as '$HOME/.gnupg/openpgp-revocs.d/BB99F766554D44442229877768F76554ABDD334C public and secret key created and signed. pub rsa2048 2017-08-14 [SC] BB99F766554D44442229877768F76554ABDD334C BB99F766554D44442229877768F76554ABDD334C uid Real Name (Sample Only) sub rsa2048 2017-08-14 [E] $