Generate GnuPG Keys for message encryption in cPanel

 

How to create and manage GnuPG Keys in your cPanel web hosting control panel

 

GnuPG (short for Gnu Privacy Guard) uses public-key cryptography and authentication to allow users to exchange secure communications (email). The system consists of a key pair, a private key used to encrypt and is kept secret, the public key is shared and is used to decrypt and thereby confirm the genuine source of the communication. cPanel allows you to generate or import GnuPG Keys. Learn more detail about GnuPG Keys at the GNU Privacy Handbook website.

To proceed with importing or generating GnuPG Keys, you must first log into your cPanel hosting control panel.

Once logged in, we will proceed with generating a GnuPG Key pair (public and private) in cPanel ...

view the Create GnuPG Keys video tutorial

First, click on the GnuPG Keys icon in the Security section

Create GnuPG Keys

We now come to the GnuPG Keys page and we are faced with a number of entry boxes to provide all of the information required to proceed with generating a GnuPG Key Pair ...

Your Name: - Pretty obvious, but just ensure that you select the name that you will want to be seen during secure communications, encryption and decryption (authentication). If you use a business name, it would be good to use that business name here.

Your Email: - Also pretty obvious, but ensure that you enter the full email address that you will using this key pair with.

Comment/NickName: - Useful for determining the use of the key, especially if you generate and use a lot of key pairs.

Key Password (blank for none): - Entirely up to you, but if you want to see the use of a password for encryption, enter it here.

Expire Date: - Very important, this will mark the key pair as expired when the period runs out and you will then need to generate a new key pair. In the great scheme of things on the internet this is pretty important.

Key Size: - The bigger the key size, the more secure and more difficult it would be to decrypt without access to both keys. We recommend you choose the largest key size (4096).

Once you have provided all of the above information click the Generate Key button. The next screen will ask for your patience while the key pair is generated by the system (this can take a minute or two). Once generated the page expands to show details of the newly generated key pair.

Importing GnuPG Keys

From the GnuPG Keys page, scroll down and click ont he Import Key button. Simply copy the key that you wish to import and paste into the large entry box provided, click Import and the key will be added to your account.