Exporting a GPG public key in linux CLI

If you read my previous blog pgp using gpg , your probably thinking... "Well now what do I do with my key..?"
If so, this blog is for you!
First, a little bit about PGP usage. You have two keys, the secret key and the public key.
The public key is the one you can share freely, the secret key you should protect.
If someone wants to send you an encrypted message, they first need to get your public key.
If you want to send someone an encrypted message, you first need to get there public key.
To display you key in ASCII type the "gpg --export -armor <key name>"  command. This will display the key in the CLI session, but you would need to cut and paste the contents to a text file. This process can be completed quicker by redirecting the output of the command direct to a text file using the ">" meta character as shown below.

 
Now when we type "ls" to list the files in our home directory we see a file called "YourName.asc" which is a text file containing your public key.
Incidently, I chose ".asc" as I know this is what PGP uses to identify public keys.
You can check the contents of the file by opening it in a text editor like gedit, but if we want to stay in CLI we could use "cat filename" or to enable scrolling you can type "less filename" as shown below.

To exit less, use the ":Q" command as you would in Vi.

The contents of the file look like this;
 

-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux)
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==
=MgSk
-----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

This is the public key for "YourName" and can be distributed in any way you choose, including email.

This also achieves my objective for this blog. In my next blog I hope to demonstrate how to use other peoples public keys to encrypt a message.