Hi all,

I'm working on this project, wherein a gpg-encrypted file is being generated and transmitted from one end and is being received and processed on another end. I work on the receiving end, and I already have the decryption part working by entering a passphrase.

However, since things should work automatically, I will be creating a script to do the decryption of the file, hence, no way of entering a passphrase.

Can I configure the recipient machine (perhaps gpg setup) to not require passphrase when decrypting files?

Your feedback would be very much appreciated.

Thank you!

HI,

I think you have two choices:

1 - do not set a password to protect your private GPG key worste?)
2 - use gpg-agent to cache the GPG key password for the automa-user (better)

Thank you very much.

But, what really would be the problem if I don't put passphrase to my private key? It sounds like a security concern to me, but I don't understand why in a technical way.

Cheers.

The password protect your (private) key encryting it.
This to prevent extraction|access|use to your protected content.

For example, someone (with access to your box) could get your private key (gpg --export-secret-key [keyId]) and do what you can do with that ... it would not be a great scenario :-(

But, if the key is only in my keyring, the other user would not be able to see and export the private key, right?

I mean, when the other user does [gpg --list-secret-keys] and does not see my privkey001, he would not be able to export the key using [gpg --export-secret-key privkey001], right?

Cheers!

Yes, sure, you're right ... she/he would be able in case you set up correctly the directory grants of your .gnupg directory (and contained files) or she/he cannot be root onto your box.... ;-)

It really is "up to you." You might, for example, be dealing strictly with an "internal-only" connection between two systems that are well-known to one another and fairly easy for you to control. Passphrases (encryption ...) might truly be superfluous in such a case.

The primary layer of protection is simply that ... "you must possess the key." The key should be unique, and installed on exactly one machine, and it should be impossible to make a connection to that box without possession of that key. If you do all of these things, and judge that you truly are able to control physical possession of the key, then you might well conclude that a passphrase is of no real added-value.

Nice. Thank you very much. Marking this as solved for now. Comments are still welcome though.

Cheers!