GPG-MAIL-TUBE(1)

📦
version 2.4.9 · 13 versions
, in alpine 3.22, alpine 3.23

✨ NAME ✨

okay so welcome to GPG-MAIL-TUBE(1), bestie 💖 this one lives under the GNU Privacy Guard 2.4 umbrella and it's literally here to encrypt rfc822 formatted mail right in a pipeline. no big deal, just main character encryption energy 💅

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

gpg-mail-tube [options] recipients

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

gpg-mail-tube takes RFC-822 formatted mail on stdin and turns it into a PGP/MIME encrypted mail, which is then written to stdout. it's giving “mail goes in, encrypted mail comes out” and honestly? iconic 🦋

the recipients must be plain mail addresses, like foo@example.org, and should in general list the To and Cc addresses contained in the mail. yes bestie, keep the list matching the mail — no chaotic guessing 🙈

🌸 OPTIONS 🌸

gpg-mail-tube understands these options:

  • --verbose, -v — enable extra informational output. it's giving “tell me everything” energy ✨
  • --quiet, -q — try to be as quiet as possible. shhh 🤫
  • --log-file file — write log output to file. use socket:// to log to a socket. fancy 💅
  • --no-stderr — suppresses all output to stderr. this is useful for callers which don't distinguish stdout and stderr. to get diagnostics, the option --log-file can be used 🫶
  • --header name=value — add the mail header "name: value" to the output. cute little header moment 🎀
  • --setenv name=value — put the given environment string into the environment of this process and of the called gpg. this option is required if there is no other way to set the environment 🔥
  • --as-attach, -a — do not write a PGP/MIME mail, but emit a simple body along with an attachment containing the encrypted body of the input mail. if the input was a plain text message, a simple encrypted file will be attached. if the input was a multipart MIME message, the encrypted file is of type message/rfc822. different vibe, same encryption 💖
  • --gpg gpgcmd — use the specified command gpgcmd instead of gpg. you can point it at your fave 👑
  • --vsd — use the gpg from a GnuPG VS-Desktop® AppImage. the AppImage is started if it is not running. a symlink named ~/.gnupg-vsd/gnupg-vs-desktop.AppImage needs to link to the actually to be used AppImage 🧚
  • --version — print version of the program and exit. tiny flex ⭐
  • --help — display a brief help page and exit. we love a quick orientation 🌈

🦋 EXAMPLES 🦋

the following options can be used in a local transport rule of the Exim MTA which assumes that check_local_user has been used in the router.

         transport_filter = /usr/local/bin/gpg-mail-tube --setenv HOME=${home} \
                            --no-stderr -- $pipe_addresses

for a remote transport, the use of size_addition and an explicit setting of the user and its home directory might be required. lowkey important, so don't skip it 🙈

🫶 DIAGNOSTICS 🫶

the program returns 0 on a successful encryption or a non-zero value on error. note that on error some output might have already been written to stdout. yeah bestie, that's the little plot twist 😭

🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

the full documentation for this tool is maintained as a Texinfo manual. if GnuPG and the info program are properly installed at your site, the command

info gnupg

should give you access to the complete manual including a menu structure and an index. slay 💅

this page was brought to you by GnuPG 2.4.9 on 2025-02-19 — periodt 💖

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