Is the key acquired from running gpg --export-secret-key encrypted or cleartext?

Question

How to share one PGP key on multiple machines details how to export your gpg secret key into a file with gpg --export-secret-key -a > secretkey.asc. What the answer does not state is whether the keyfile created is encrypted with your pass-phrase or clear-text.

Is the key-file encrypted or not?

score 4 · Accepted Answer · edited Mar 17 '13 at 23:00

4

When you import a key created by the --export-secret-key option, you get both the public & private keys; however, just like before you'll need the passphrase in order to use the private key. This is shown in the fact that you do not need your passphrase to run gpg --export-secret-key -a, and therefore the secret key never gets decrypted.

Personally, I would make sure to encrypt such an exported key again (perhaps symmetrically, with a long unique passphrase) if I was transporting or storing it.

edited Mar 17 '13 at 23:00

fouric

4,588

answered Mar 17 '13 at 17:22

rsaw

431

This answer does not convince me. The fact that I do not need a passphrase to export again might just mean that the key is now stored unencrypted. – Konstantin Schubert Aug 09 '13 at 10:41
2

you do not need your passphrase to run gpg --export-secret-key -a this is not true – phil294 Dec 03 '19 at 13:28

Is the key acquired from running gpg --export-secret-key encrypted or cleartext?

1 Answers1