Provided by: age_1.1.1-1ubuntu0.23.10.1_amd64 
NAME
age - simple, modern, and secure file encryption
SYNOPSIS
age [--encrypt] (-r RECIPIENT | -R PATH)... [--armor] [-o OUTPUT] [INPUT]
age [--encrypt] --passphrase [--armor] [-o OUTPUT] [INPUT]
age --decrypt [-i PATH | -j PLUGIN]... [-o OUTPUT] [INPUT]
DESCRIPTION
age encrypts or decrypts INPUT to OUTPUT. The INPUT argument is optional and defaults to
standard input. Only a single INPUT file may be specified. If -o is not specified, OUTPUT
defaults to standard output.
If -p/--passphrase is specified, the file is encrypted with a passphrase requested
interactively. Otherwise, it's encrypted to one or more RECIPIENTS specified with
-r/--recipient or -R/--recipients-file. Every recipient can decrypt the file.
In -d/--decrypt mode, passphrase-encrypted files are detected automatically and the
passphrase is requested interactively. Otherwise, one or more IDENTITIES specified with
-i/--identity are used to decrypt the file.
age encrypted files are binary and not malleable, with around 200 bytes of overhead per
recipient, plus 16 bytes every 64KiB of plaintext.
OPTIONS
-o, --output=OUTPUT
Write encrypted or decrypted file to OUTPUT instead of standard output. If OUTPUT
already exists it will be overwritten.
If encrypting without --armor, age will refuse to output binary to a TTY. This can
be forced by specifying - as OUTPUT.
--version
Print the version and exit.
Encryption options
-e, --encrypt
Encrypt INPUT to OUTPUT. This is the default.
-r, --recipient=RECIPIENT
Encrypt to the explicitly specified RECIPIENT. See the RECIPIENTS AND IDENTITIES
section for possible recipient formats.
This option can be repeated and combined with other recipient flags, and the file
can be decrypted by all provided recipients independently.
-R, --recipients-file=PATH
Encrypt to the RECIPIENTS listed in the file at PATH, one per line. Empty lines and
lines starting with # are ignored as comments.
If PATH is -, the recipients are read from standard input. In this case, the INPUT
argument must be specified.
This option can be repeated and combined with other recipient flags, and the file
can be decrypted by all provided recipients independently.
-p, --passphrase
Encrypt with a passphrase, requested interactively from the terminal. age will
offer to auto-generate a secure passphrase.
This option can't be used with other recipient flags.
-a, --armor
Encrypt to an ASCII-only "armored" encoding.
age armor is a strict version of PEM with type AGE ENCRYPTED FILE, canonical
"strict" Base64, no headers, and no support for leading and trailing extra data.
Decryption transparently detects and decodes ASCII armoring.
-i, --identity=PATH
Encrypt to the RECIPIENTS corresponding to the IDENTITIES listed in the file at
PATH. This is equivalent to converting the file at PATH to a recipients file with
age-keygen -y and then passing that to -R/--recipients-file.
For the format of PATH, see the definition of -i/--identity in the Decryption
options section.
-e/--encrypt must be explicitly specified when using -i/--identity in encryption
mode to avoid confusion.
-j PLUGIN
Encrypt using the data-less plugin PLUGIN.
This is equivalent to using -i/--identity with a file that contains a single plugin
IDENTITY that encodes no plugin-specific data.
-e/--encrypt must be explicitly specified when using -j in encryption mode to avoid
confusion.
Decryption options
-d, --decrypt
Decrypt INPUT to OUTPUT.
If INPUT is passphrase encrypted, it will be automatically detected and the
passphrase will be requested interactively. Otherwise, the IDENTITIES specified
with -i/--identity are used.
ASCII armoring is transparently detected and decoded.
-i, --identity=PATH
Decrypt using the IDENTITIES at PATH.
PATH may be one of the following:
a. A file listing IDENTITIES one per line. Empty lines and lines starting with "#"
are ignored as comments.
b. A passphrase encrypted age file, containing IDENTITIES one per line like above.
The passphrase is requested interactively. Note that passphrase-protected identity
files are not necessary for most use cases, where access to the encrypted identity
file implies access to the whole system.
c. An SSH private key file, in PKCS#1, PKCS#8, or OpenSSH format. If the private
key is password-protected, the password is requested interactively only if the SSH
identity matches the file. See the SSH keys section for more information, including
supported key types.
d. "-", causing one of the options above to be read from standard input. In this
case, the INPUT argument must be specified.
This option can be repeated. Identities are tried in the order in which are
provided, and the first one matching one of the file's recipients is used. Unused
identities are ignored, but it is an error if the INPUT file is
passphrase-encrypted and -i/--identity is specified.
-j PLUGIN
Decrypt using the data-less plugin PLUGIN.
This is equivalent to using -i/--identity with a file that contains a single plugin
IDENTITY that encodes no plugin-specific data.
RECIPIENTS AND IDENTITIES
RECIPIENTS are public values, like a public key, that a file can be encrypted to.
IDENTITIES are private values, like a private key, that allow decrypting a file encrypted
to the corresponding RECIPIENT.
Native X25519 keys
Native age key pairs are generated with age-keygen(1), and provide small encodings and
strong encryption based on X25519. They are the recommended recipient type for most
applications.
A RECIPIENT encoding begins with age1 and looks like the following:
age1gde3ncmahlqd9gg50tanl99r960llztrhfapnmx853s4tjum03uqfssgdh
An IDENTITY encoding begins with AGE-SECRET-KEY-1 and looks like the following:
AGE-SECRET-KEY-1KTYK6RVLN5TAPE7VF6FQQSKZ9HWWCDSKUGXXNUQDWZ7XXT5YK5LSF3UTKQ
An encrypted file can't be linked to the native recipient it's encrypted to without access
to the corresponding identity.
SSH keys
As a convenience feature, age also supports encrypting to RSA or Ed25519 ssh(1) keys. RSA
keys must be at least 2048 bits. This feature employs more complex cryptography, and
should only be used when a native key is not available for the recipient. Note that SSH
keys might not be protected long-term by the recipient, since they are revokable when used
only for authentication.
A RECIPIENT encoding is an SSH public key in authorized_keys format (see the
AUTHORIZED_KEYS FILE FORMAT section of sshd(8)), starting with ssh-rsa or ssh-ed25519,
like the following:
ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAADAQABAAABgQDULTit0KUehbi[...]GU4BtElAbzh8=
ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAIH9pO5pz22JZEas[...]l1uZc31FGYMXa
The comment at the end of the line, if present, is ignored.
In recipient files passed to -R/--recipients-file, unsupported but valid SSH public keys
are ignored with a warning, to facilitate using authorized_keys or GitHub .keys files.
(See EXAMPLES.)
An IDENTITY is an SSH private key file passed individually to -i/--identity. Note that
keys held on hardware tokens such as YubiKeys or accessed via ssh-agent(1) are not
supported.
An encrypted file can be linked to the SSH public key it was encrypted to. This is so that
age can identify the correct SSH private key before requesting its password, if any.
Plugins
age can be extended through plugins. A plugin is only loaded if a corresponding RECIPIENT
or IDENTITY is specified. (Simply decrypting a file encrypted with a plugin will not cause
it to load, for security reasons among others.)
A RECIPIENT for a plugin named example starts with age1example1, while an IDENTITY starts
with AGE-PLUGIN-EXAMPLE-1. They both encode arbitrary plugin-specific data, and are
generated by the plugin.
When either is specified, age searches for age-plugin-example in the PATH and executes it
to perform the file header encryption or decryption. The plugin may request input from the
user through age to complete the operation.
Plugins can be freely mixed with other plugins or natively supported keys.
A plugin is not bound to only encrypt or decrypt files meant for or generated by the
plugin. For example, a plugin can be used to decrypt files encrypted to a native X25519
RECIPIENT or even with a passphrase. Similarly, a plugin can encrypt a file such that it
can be decrypted without the use of any plugin.
Plugins for which the IDENTITY/RECIPIENT distinction doesn't make sense (such as a
symmetric encryption plugin) may generate only an IDENTITY and instruct the user to
perform encryption with the -e/--encrypt and -i/--identity flags. Plugins for which the
concept of separate identities doesn't make sense (such as a password-encryption plugin)
may instruct the user to use the -j flag.
EXIT STATUS
age will exit 0 if and only if encryption or decryption are successful for the full length
of the input.
If an error occurs during decryption, partial output might still be generated, but only if
it was possible to securely authenticate it. No unauthenticated output is ever released.
BACKWARDS COMPATIBILITY
Files encrypted with a stable version (not alpha, beta, or release candidate) of age, or
with any v1.0.0 beta or release candidate, will decrypt with any later version of the
tool.
If decrypting older files poses a security risk, doing so might cause an error by default.
In this case, a flag will be provided to force the operation.
EXAMPLES
Generate a new identity, encrypt data, and decrypt:
$ age-keygen -o key.txt
Public key: age1ql3z7hjy54pw3hyww5ayyfg7zqgvc7w3j2elw8zmrj2kg5sfn9aqmcac8p
$ tar cvz ~/data | age -r age1ql3z7hjy54pw3hyww5ayyfg7zqgvc7w3j2elw8zmrj2kg5sfn9aqmcac8p > data.tar.gz.age
$ age -d -o data.tar.gz -i key.txt data.tar.gz.age
Encrypt example.jpg to multiple recipients and output to example.jpg.age:
$ age -o example.jpg.age -r age1ql3z7hjy54pw3hyww5ayyfg7zqgvc7w3j2elw8zmrj2kg5sfn9aqmcac8p \
-r age1lggyhqrw2nlhcxprm67z43rta597azn8gknawjehu9d9dl0jq3yqqvfafg example.jpg
Encrypt to a list of recipients:
$ cat > recipients.txt
# Alice
age1ql3z7hjy54pw3hyww5ayyfg7zqgvc7w3j2elw8zmrj2kg5sfn9aqmcac8p
# Bob
age1lggyhqrw2nlhcxprm67z43rta597azn8gknawjehu9d9dl0jq3yqqvfafg
$ age -R recipients.txt example.jpg > example.jpg.age
Encrypt and decrypt a file using a passphrase:
$ age -p secrets.txt > secrets.txt.age
Enter passphrase (leave empty to autogenerate a secure one):
Using the autogenerated passphrase "release-response-step-brand-wrap-ankle-pair-unusual-sword-train".
$ age -d secrets.txt.age > secrets.txt
Enter passphrase:
Encrypt and decrypt with a passphrase-protected identity file:
$ age-keygen | age -p > key.age
Public key: age1yhm4gctwfmrpz87tdslm550wrx6m79y9f2hdzt0lndjnehwj0ukqrjpyx5
Enter passphrase (leave empty to autogenerate a secure one):
Using the autogenerated passphrase "hip-roast-boring-snake-mention-east-wasp-honey-input-actress".
$ age -r age1yhm4gctwfmrpz87tdslm550wrx6m79y9f2hdzt0lndjnehwj0ukqrjpyx5 secrets.txt > secrets.txt.age
$ age -d -i key.age secrets.txt.age > secrets.txt
Enter passphrase for identity file "key.age":
Encrypt and decrypt with an SSH public key:
$ age -R ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub example.jpg > example.jpg.age
$ age -d -i ~/.ssh/id_ed25519 example.jpg.age > example.jpg
Encrypt and decrypt with age-plugin-yubikey:
$ age-plugin-yubikey # run interactive setup, generate identity file and obtain recipient
$ age -r age1yubikey1qwt50d05nh5vutpdzmlg5wn80xq5negm4uj9ghv0snvdd3yysf5yw3rhl3t secrets.txt > secrets.txt.age
$ age -d -i age-yubikey-identity-388178f3.txt secrets.txt.age
Encrypt to the SSH keys of a GitHub user:
$ curl https://github.com/benjojo.keys | age -R - example.jpg > example.jpg.age
SEE ALSO
age-keygen(1)
AUTHORS
Filippo Valsorda age@filippo.io
September 2022 AGE(1)