Skip to content

Instantly share code, notes, and snippets.

@chrisroos
Created September 9, 2011 10:49
Show Gist options
  • Save chrisroos/1205934 to your computer and use it in GitHub Desktop.
Save chrisroos/1205934 to your computer and use it in GitHub Desktop.
Instructions for exporting/importing (backup/restore) GPG keys

Every so often I have to restore my gpg keys and I'm never sure how best to do it. So, I've spent some time playing around with the various ways to export/import (backup/restore) keys.

Method 1

Backup the public and secret keyrings and trust database

cp ~/.gnupg/pubring.gpg /path/to/backups/
cp ~/.gnupg/secring.gpg /path/to/backups/
cp ~/.gnupg/trustdb.gpg /path/to/backups/
# or, instead of backing up trustdb...
gpg --export-ownertrust > chrisroos-ownertrust-gpg.txt

NOTE The GPG manual suggests exporting the ownertrust instead of backing up the trustdb, although it doesn't explain why.

Restore the public and secret keyrings and trust database

cp /path/to/backups/*.gpg ~/.gnupg/
# or, if you exported the ownertrust
gpg --import-ownertrust chrisroos-ownertrust-gpg.txt

Method 2

This only really works if you don't mind losing any other keys (than your own).

Export public and secret key and ownertrust

gpg -a --export chris@seagul.co.uk > chrisroos-public-gpg.key
gpg -a --export-secret-keys chris@seagul.co.uk > chrisroos-secret-gpg.key
gpg --export-ownertrust > chrisroos-ownertrust-gpg.txt

Import secret key (which contains the public key) and ownertrust

gpg --import chrisroos-secret-gpg.key
gpg --import-ownertrust chrisroos-ownertrust-gpg.txt

Method 3

This is mainly about trusting my key once I've imported it (by either restoring the pubring.gpg and secring.gpg, or by using --import). This seems to be what I do the most as I either forget to import the trustdb or ownertrust.

Ultimately trust the imported key

This is so that I can encrypt data using my public key

gpg --edit-key chris@seagul.co.uk
gpg> trust
Your decision? 5 (Ultimate trust)

NOTE If I don't trust the public key then I see the following message when trying to encrypt something with it:

gpg: <key-id>: There is no assurance this key belongs to the named user
@snowman
Copy link

snowman commented Dec 30, 2019

Is there any difference between gpg and gpg2?

@snowman
Copy link

snowman commented Dec 30, 2019

why not just backup entire $HOME/.gnupg directory?

@jeffryang24
Copy link

There is no pubring.gpg and secring.gpg in gpg2, probably just backup the whole .gnupg directory. Maybe just ensure that the .gnupg directory's permission and the files inside it are safe, for example permission 600 for private key, etc. cmiiw.

Ref: https://www.gnupg.org/faq/whats-new-in-2.1.html#nosecring

@russellballestrini
Copy link

russellballestrini commented Nov 7, 2020

Thanks @dandv!

I use method 1 to restore my ~/.gnupg directory from a backup.

It didn't work at first, I needed to delete the whole directory first prior to the restore!

@hobti01
Copy link

hobti01 commented Sep 25, 2022

If you've copied or re-created the ownertrust file you may see error

$ gpg --import-ownertrust chrisroos-ownertrust-gpg.txt
gpg: error in 'chrisroos-ownertrust-gpg.txt': line too long

In which case, confirm that there is a newline at the end of the file.

Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment