I'm trying to migrate from Windows XP and have recently installed Debian Sarge. Now I've encrypted some files in XP using PGP Desktop 9. I successfully imported my key into GNU PG but when I select decrypt from the context menu and I enter my pass phrase correctly nothing happens. I cannot find the decrypted files. I am not sure they even have been decrypted as there was no progress bar, etc the application just closes. There is no error about an incorrect passphrase, I tried deliberately entering it incorrectly just to check.

Please help

Sounds like it may be crashing. Try doing it from the command line like this:

I tried the CLI from root:

#gpg /Home/mark/Mark's/Cv.doc.pgp
>

But this time it didn't even prompt me for a passphrase, it just gave me a '>'. I don't think it's crashing. Do you think it could be because it was encrypted using a different app and OS?

Make that:
and try again. Remember that the ' is a special character in the shell - it means the start or end of a string. So you either need to put the whole thing inside " marks or escape the ' like this:

I'm having a problem very similar to Marc's.

I'm running both Mandrake 9.2 and XP on my machine. I have a lot of PGP encrypted (XP side) files that I need to access when running Linux. When I use

pgp file_to_decrypt

I'm asked for my passphrase, I type it but the cursor doesnt move and apparantly the passphrase is not enterred either because I get an error message

You need a pass phrase to decrypt this file ....

I've already tried to put my passphrase in a file and export that to PGPPASSFILE but no luck either.


Any solutions anybody ?

tia,

Ray

Try giving infile outfile as in: gpg --decrypt filename targetfilename

Makuyl,

Tried and died....

There's something that bothers me... in almost all posts I see GpG and not PgP mentioned... is there a difference ?

Ray

Well, if I have understood it correctly, gpg stands for "GNU privacy guard" and is commonly used in linux whereas pgp stands for "pretty good privacy". Mostly openpgp is used.
http://www.gnupg.org/(en)/documentation/faqs.html

Did you config gpg by generating keys? http://aplawrence.com/Basics/gpg.html

Thats also the difference as I understood it.

I got pgp of the official pgpi site.

The keys are the ones created under PGP (in XP) and work fine ENcrypting a file... which I can DEcrypt under XP to check the encryption process.
I think the problem lies in PGP (under Linux) blockin the typing I'm doing when entering the pass phrase ... do you think thats possible ? It's that or else something very screwy in the PGP application.

Ray

I really don't know why it would block typing. Sorry, but all I can suggest at this point is to follow the howto closely and try using the gpg command instead of pgp.