Hello, I'm in need of compressing and encrypting both individual files, but also folders in my Linux environment. Suppose I have a file called "schema.sql" that I need to compress and encrypt, or a folder called "daily_backup" which consists of 5 files and 3 subdirectories (each containing various files). How would you recommend I compress and encrypt this data?
I want to use a passphrase for encryption - and not a key file. Currently, I have configured GnuPG using a configuration file with the following: $ nano ~/.gnupg/gpg.conf cipher-algo AES256 digest-algo SHA512 cert-digest-algo SHA512 s2k-cipher-algo AES256 s2k-digest-algo SHA512 s2k-mode 3 s2k-count 65011712 compress-algo none throw-keyids no-emit-version no-comments no-symkey-cache disable-cipher-algo 3DES disable-cipher-algo CAST5 disable-cipher-algo BLOWFISH $ chmod 700 ~/.gnupg $ chmod 600 ~/.gnupg/gpg.conf And so far I've tried encrypting a single file using a passphrase like so: $ echo "hello world" > file.txt $ gpg -c -o encrypted.dat --batch --passphrase "Password123!" file.txt $ rm file.txt $ gpg --batch --yes --passphrase "Password123!" -d -o file.txt encrypted.dat $ cat file.txt I can also use it interactively by omitting "--passphrase". I'm a beginner when it comes to encryption and for me it's important that the encryption I use is secure enough to withstand brute force attacks, so please help me out by configuring the GPG configuration file properly. I don't know if my settings are considered bad practice in 2026. I also need a way to compress an entire directory. And preferably also hide all file names and metadata. I want the encrypted file to show as little information as possible (dates, groups, user, filenames, metadata, etc). I suppose I need to use "tar" and pipe it to GPG. Please show me your commands using best practices in 2026, using a passphrase (and not a key file). Thank you! Best Regards Wilhelm Futtiger _______________________________________________ Gnupg-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
