GPG Guide

Guide on creating and using GPG keys

WIP (Ctrl-S's job)

Create Ubuntu LiveUSB Environment

• Have a USB flash drive (32GB+ USB3+ preferred).

• Download latest ubuntu desktop ISO. Available from: https://ubuntu.com/download/desktop

• Have a ubuntu linux environment to install the liveusb from.

• Install the drive creation tools:

$ sudo add-apt-repository universe
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mkusb/ppa
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt install --install-recommends mkusb mkusb-nox usb-pack-efi

Find out what storage devices are connected:

$ lsblk

• Figure out which device is your flash drive.

e.g. /dev/sdh

Write a persistant Ubuntu LiveUSB Environment to the flash drive

1. Press the windows key on your keyboard to bring up the ubuntu app search screen.
2. type mkusb
3. Run the mkusb tool by clicking on it.

1. Choose: i - "Install (make a boot device)".
2. Choose: p - "Persistent live – only Debian and Ubuntu".
3. Select the ubuntu ISO file on your machine.
4. Select the device that matches your USB drive to install onto.
5. Choose just: "usb-pack-efi (default grub from ISO file)"
6. Tell the program how much space to give to the liveUSB ubuntu install for it's own storage, about half of the disk should do (4GB+).
7. Confirm everything is correct, as continuing with incorrect settings may destroy your data.
8. If everything is correct, select "go" and click "go".
9. Wait for the program to write to the USB drive.
10. Choose: "Quit"
11. Choose: "Quit"
12. Press return in the console windows to exit it.

Your USB drive should now be ready to boot from.

Boot liveUSB

1. Have machine powered off.
2. Insert bootable USB drive.
3. Hold F2 while powering on machine until BIOS menun shows up.
4. Choose to boot from the USB drive.
5. Ubuntu bootloader should autoselect persistant liveusb
6. Let machine boot into persistant liveusb
7. Ubuntu desktop environment should be displayed on your computer.

Update liveUSB software

Open a terminal window by pressing the three keys simultaneously: Ctrl-Alt-T Run the following commands: Check how much free space you have:

 $ df -h

You should see a line containting /media/ubuntu/casper-rw, and it should have at least 1GB of space free. If this is not the case, you probably did not succeed with the previous steps. This alternative command should show only the disk partition we are interested in:

 $ df -h | grep casper-rw

Enable extra apt repositories: (You will need an internet connection for this part.)

$ sudo add-apt-repository universe
$ sudo add-apt-repository multiverse
## Update installed software:
$ sudo apt update # Update information about what software packages are available.
$ sudo apt upgrade -y # Upgrade to the latest available version of installed packages.

Enable smartcard support. (generic)

(You will need an internet connection for this part.)

$ sudo apt-get install scdaemon # This package does all the smartcard communication!
$ sudo systemctl start pcscd 
$ sudo systemctl enable pcscd
$ gpg --card-edit list # Test by looking for connected cards