| SQ(1) | USER COMMANDS | SQ(1) |
sq - A command-line frontend for Sequoia, an implementation of OpenPGP
Functionality is grouped and available using subcommands. Currently, this interface is completely stateless. Therefore, you need to supply all configuration and certificates explicitly on each invocation.
OpenPGP data can be provided in binary or ASCII armored form. This will be handled automatically. Emitted OpenPGP data is ASCII armored by default.
We use the term "certificate", or cert for short, to refer to OpenPGP keys that do not contain secrets. Conversely, we use the term "key" to refer to OpenPGP keys that do contain secrets.
sq [FLAGS] [OPTIONS] <SUBCOMMAND>
Decrypts a message using either supplied keys, or by prompting for a password. Any signatures are checked using the supplied certificates.
The converse operation is "sq encrypt".
Encrypts a message for any number of recipients and with any number of passwords, optionally signing the message in the process.
The converse operation is "sq decrypt".
Creates signed messages or detached signatures. Detached signatures are often used to sign software packages.
The converse operation is "sq verify".
When verifying signed messages, the message is written to stdout or the file given to --output.
When a detached message is verified, no output is produced. Detached signatures are often used to sign software packages.
The converse operation is "sq sign".
To make encrypted data easier to handle and transport, OpenPGP data can be transformed to an ASCII representation called ASCII Armor. sq emits armored data by default, but this subcommand can be used to convert existing OpenPGP data to its ASCII-encoded representation.
The converse operation is "sq dearmor".
To make encrypted data easier to handle and transport, OpenPGP data can be transformed to an ASCII representation called ASCII Armor. sq transparently handles armored data, but this subcommand can be used to explicitly convert existing ASCII-encoded OpenPGP data to its binary representation.
The converse operation is "sq armor".
It is often difficult to tell from cursory inspection using cat(1) or file(1) what kind of OpenPGP one is looking at. This subcommand inspects the data and provides a meaningful human-readable description of it.
We use the term "key" to refer to OpenPGP keys that do contain secrets. This subcommand provides primitives to generate and otherwise manipulate keys.
Conversely, we use the term "certificate", or cert for short, to refer to OpenPGP keys that do not contain secrets. See "sq keyring" for operations on certificates.
Collections of keys or certficicates (also known as "keyrings" when they contain secret key material, and "certrings" when they don't) are any number of concatenated certificates. This subcommand provides tools to list, split, join, merge, and filter keyrings.
Note: In the documentation of this subcommand, we sometimes use the terms keys and certs interchangeably.
Using a certification a keyholder may vouch for the fact that another certificate legitimately belongs to a user id. In the context of emails this means that the same entity controls the key and the email address. These kind of certifications form the basis for the Web Of Trust.
This command emits the certificate with the new certification. The updated certificate has to be distributed, preferably by sending it to the certificate holder for attestation. See also "sq key attest-certification".
An OpenPGP data stream consists of packets. These tools allow working with packet streams. They are mostly of interest to developers, but "sq packet dump" may be helpful to a wider audience both to provide valuable information in bug reports to OpenPGP-related software, and as a learning tool.
Autocrypt is a standard for mail user agents to provide convenient end-to-end encryption of emails. This subcommand provides a limited way to produce and consume headers that are used by Autocrypt to communicate certificates between clients.
See https://autocrypt.org/
For the full documentation see <https://docs.sequoia-pgp.org/sq/>.
sq(1), sq-armor(1), sq-autocrypt(1), sq-certify(1), sq-dearmor(1), sq-decrypt(1), sq-encrypt(1), sq-inspect(1), sq-key(1), sq-keyring(1), sq-packet(1), sq-sign(1), sq-verify(1)
Azul <azul@sequoia-pgp.org> Igor Matuszewski <igor@sequoia-pgp.org> Justus Winter <justus@sequoia-pgp.org> Kai Michaelis <kai@sequoia-pgp.org> Neal H. Walfield <neal@sequoia-pgp.org> Nora Widdecke <nora@sequoia-pgp.org> Wiktor Kwapisiewicz <wiktor@sequoia-pgp.org>
| JANUARY 2021 | 0.24.0 (SEQUOIA-OPENPGP 1.0.0) |