Tutorial

Installing pyage

Assuming Python 3 is already installed on your system, you can now install pyage with Pip:

$ pip install age

… and you’re all set!

Generating a Key Pair

It’s like moving into an apartment: You get a new apartment address and a key. And it’s just as exciting!

$ mkdir -p ~/.config/age
$ pyage generate | tee ~/.config/age/keys.txt

You should see something like:

# created: 2020-02-10T13:34:27
# age1luj4yjndx48me58dalx200cs65qg9jhtcehjylnp8h9e2c9gduqqq8kduu
AGE-SECRET-KEY-1TPGEV9GPP6N39Z40RXTQQJMUHU40EJGDDWEFJDJFWVMY0F9FR9NSQRKGQL

Take note of the part starting with age1<gibberish>. This is your public key. It serves as your new “address” and you may distribute it to your friends and family. But never show your AGE-SECRET-KEY-<gibberish> line to anyone, this is your secret key 🔑!

Encrypt “Hello World”

Let’s create and encrypt our first file. Choose a file of your liking or generate a tiny file as follows:

$ echo "Hello World" > hello.txt

Encrypt the file to the public key obtained earlier:

$ pyage encrypt -i hello.txt -o hello.age age1luj4yjndx48me58dalx200cs65qg9jhtcehjylnp8h9e2c9gduqqq8kduu

The encrypted file is now stored at hello.age.

Decrypt hello.age

In order to decrypt the file, all you need to do is to call

$ pyage decrypt -i hello.age

If all went well, your terminal will print out “Hello World”. Hello!