Ubuntu Manpage: sq - A command-line frontend for Sequoia, an implementation of OpenPGP

Provided by: sq_0.25.0-3ubuntu0.22.04.1_amd64

NAME

       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.

SYNOPSIS

       sq [FLAGS] [OPTIONS] <SUBCOMMAND>

FLAGS

       -h, --help
              Prints help information

       -V, --version
              Prints version information

       -f, --force
              Overwrites existing files

OPTIONS

       --known-notation NOTATION
              Adds  NOTATION to the list of known notations. This is used when validating signatures. Signatures
              that have unknown notations with the critical bit set are considered invalid.

SUBCOMMANDS

help Prints this message or the help of the given subcommand(s)

decrypt
Decrypts a message

Decrypts a message using either supplied keys, or by prompting for a password. If message
tampering is detected, an error is returned. See below for details.

If certificates are supplied using the "--signer-cert" option, any signatures that are found are
checked using these certificates. Verification is only successful if there is no bad signature,
and the number of successfully verified signatures reaches the threshold configured with the
"--signatures" parameter.

If the signature verification fails, or if message tampering is detected, the program terminates
with an exit status indicating failure. In addition to that, the last 25 MiB of the message are
withheld, i.e. if the message is smaller than 25 MiB, no output is produced, and if it is larger,
then the output will be truncated.

The converse operation is "sq encrypt".

encrypt
Encrypts a message

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".

sign Signs messages or data files

Creates signed messages or detached signatures. Detached signatures are often used to sign
software packages.

The converse operation is "sq verify".

verify Verifies signed messages or detached signatures

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.

Verification is only successful if there is no bad signature, and the number of successfully
verified signatures reaches the threshold configured with the "--signatures" parameter. If the
verification fails, the program terminates with an exit status indicating failure. In addition to
that, the last 25 MiB of the message are withheld, i.e. if the message is smaller than 25 MiB, no
output is produced, and if it is larger, then the output will be truncated.

The converse operation is "sq sign".

armor Converts binary to ASCII

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".

dearmor
Converts ASCII to binary

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".

inspect
Inspects data, like file(1)

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.

key Manages keys

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.

keyring
Manages collections of keys or certs

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.

certify
Certifies a User ID for a Certificate

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".

packet Low-level packet manipulation

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
Communicates certificates using Autocrypt

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/

AUTHORS