Installation

Table of Contents

• UNIX/Linux
• Windows
• Mac OS X

UNIX/Linux

Presumably, if you use unix, you already know how to install packages. I will cover a from-source installation, but I won't cover the package management infrastructures for the various linux/unices. For that, suffice to say that some examples include "apt-get install gpg", "yum install gpg", "urpmi gpg", "up2date gpg", or "pkg-get install gpg". That said, a source installation would look like this:

  $ wget ftp://ftp.gnupg.org/gcrypt/gnupg/gnupg-1.4.2.tar.bz2
  $ tar jxf gnupg-1.4.2.tar.bz2
  $ cd gnupg-1.4.2
  $ ./configure
  $ make
  $ sudo make install

That'll install into /usr/local, you can change that by passing --prefix=/some/path to the configure script.

Windows

The Windows installation has become significantly easier in the recent past. There is now a relatively intelligent installer that will do most of the work for you. This procedure is based on the documentation for Enigmail.

Note that if you have a previous installation of GnuPG that was done prior to the new installation, you should follow Enigmail's instructions for removing old GnuPG versions before proceeding.

• Download the Windows installer from the GnuPG Download page. As of this writing 1.4.2 is the latest version.
• Run the installer.
• Add the installation directory to your path so you may just type "gpg" from a command line rather than "C:\Program Files\GnuPG\gpg":
  • Go to Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> System -> Advanced -> Environment Variables
  • Choose "Path", and select "Edit", and to the very end of the value add ;C:\Program Files\GnuPG (note the preceding semi-colon). Click OK until you're out of the System dialog box.
  • In order for this to take effect you must close any open command windows and start a new one.
• From a command line (Start -> Run -> type "cmd" -> OK), type gpg --version. If gnupg gives you this:

  
     gpg (GnuPG) 1.4.1
     Copyright (C) 2005 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
     This program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
     This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
     under certain conditions. See the file COPYING for details.
  
     Home: C:/Documents and Settings/bporter/application Data/GnuPG
     Supported algorithms:
     Pubkey: RSA, RSA-E, RSA-S, ELG-E, DSA
     Cipher: 3DES, CAST5, BLOWFISH, AES, AES192, AES256, TWOFISH
     Hash: MD5, SHA1, RIPEMD160, SHA256, SHA384, SHA512
     Compression: Uncompressed, ZIP, ZLIB, BZIP2
     

  Then you're all done. However, if it says:

  
     'gpg' is not recognized as an internal or external command

  Then something went wrong. If that's the case, you can try typing in:

  
     "C:\Program Files\GnuPG\gpg" --version

  (note the quotes). If that works, you only messed up changing your path, if it doesn't work, try re-installing. If your path isn't working but you're sure you did it right, try logging out and logging back in.

Mac OS X

I recommend using GPG Suite on Mac OS X. It's MacGPG (a Mac-specific clone of GnuPG 2), as well as GPGMail (a plugin for Apple Mail), and other tools to manage your PGP keys in a Mac-native way.

Alternatively (or perhaps in addition) you can install GnuPG via Homebrew.