An Easy Way To Encrypt And Decrypt Files From Commandline Using GnuPG In Linux

Today, we are going to see how to encrypt and decrypt files from command line in Linux using a free utility named GNU Privacy Guard (shortly GPG or GnuPG).

There are, of course, plethora of methods, and applications are available to encrypt and decrypt files in Linux. But, encrypting and decrypting files with GnuPG is the easiest method.

GnuPG is an Open Source OpenPGP compatible encryption system. It is a commandline, sophisticated public key cryptosystem that provides digital encryption and signing services using the OpenPGP standard.

Using GnuPG, we can easily encrypt the important and confidential files and documents. It is packaged for several operating systems and also available as pre-compiled binaries.

GnuPG is available as two versions. They are GnuPG 1.x and GnuPG 2.x. GnuPG 2.x uses the modern algorithms and is recommended by security experts. You should use GnuPG 1.x only if your distribution does not support GnuPG 2.x.