Checking for existing GPG keys
Before you generate a GPG key, you can check to see if you have any existing GPG keys.
In this article
Supported GPG key algorithms
GitHub Enterprise supports several GPG key algorithms. If you try to add a key generated with an unsupported algorithm, you may encounter an error.
- RSA
- ElGamal
- DSA
- ECDH
- ECDSA
- EdDSA
Note: GPG does not come installed by default on OS X or Windows. To install GPG command line tools, see GnuPG's Download page.
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Open TerminalTerminalGit Bash.
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Use the
gpg --list-secret-keys --keyid-format LONG
command to list GPG keys for which you have both a public and private key. A private key is required for signing commits or tags.$ gpg --list-secret-keys --keyid-format LONG
Note: Some GPG installations on Linux may require you to use
gpg2 --list-keys --keyid-format LONG
to view a list of your existing keys instead. In this case you will also need to configure Git to usegpg2
by runninggit config --global gpg.program gpg2
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Check the command output to see if you have a GPG key pair.
- If there are no GPG key pairs or you don't want to use any that are available for signing commits and tags, then generate a new GPG key.
- If there's an existing GPG key pair and you want to use it to sign commits and tags, then add your GPG key to your GitHub account.