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GPG-encrypted file |
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Using the GPG-encrypted file format is a very secure method to store your personal finance data on your disk. When KMyMoney has been instructed through the settings dialog to store your data encrypted, it will cipher the data using GPG and the key you provided before actually storing it on disk. When opening an encrypted file, you have to provide the passphrase necessary to open your keyring. The encrypted file itself will be stored in GPG's ASCII armored format.
When using GPG encryption, GPG also compresses the file, so no extra compression is necessary.
If you have not done so already for mail encryption, you need to generate a key-pair in order to be able to use the GPG encryption feature of KMyMoney. Also, GPG must be installed on your system.
The details about how to generate a key-pair and how to take care of it are beyond the scope of this document. A Mini Howto on this subject can be found at http://www.gnupg.org/(en)/documentation/howtos.html .
On the encryption page of the settings dialog you have a field where you can enter the key-id of the key that should be used for encryption and decryption. You can use either the key-id, the e-mail address associated with this key or any other valid GPG key identification as value for this field. When you enter the key-id, KMyMoney will check its validity and turn on a green LED in the dialog if a key is found.
Make sure, you have both, the public and the private key for this id. If you don't own the private key for the id entered, you will not be able to open the file again.
Also on this page of the settings dialog you have the choice to select supplemental encryption with the KMyMoney recover key. This option is available to you, if that key is stored in your GPG keyring. Selecting this option will allow you to recover your data even in the case you lose your own private key. This is possible because the data is not only encrypted for your own key, but also for the KMyMoney recover key. This key is only available to selected KMyMoney developers (at the time of writing only to the author).
Under normal circumstances, you will open/save/close your file as usual. In the abnormal case of loss of your key, you have the chance to contact one of the developers who has access to the KMyMoney recover key and request help to recover your data. You may contact the developers via e-mail to the KMyMoney developer mailing list at <kmymoney2-developer@lists.sourceforge.net>.
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