the easy way

use a graphical program to export secret keys, then install it somewhere else to import them. they all have some respective way to export.

the other easy but slightly harder way

copy the entire .gnupg and .ssh folders from the home directory and move them to another place.

it is easy to backup but restoration requires some setup.

restoring a .ssh folder:

• copy .ssh folder to home directory
• run ssh-add to add all the keys (input passwords if necessary)
• set every file's permissions so that only the owner has read-write access. it can be done graphically with a file manager (gnome nautilus, or kde dolphin) or automated through the command line

chmod 600 ~/.ssh/*

chmod is the linux command to manage permissions

600 means only the owner has read-write access, and other groups and guests have none.

~/.ssh/* is the directory of the ssh folder. the star at the end selects all files within the specified folder.

restoring a .gnugp folder:

drag and drop into the home directory, as done with the ssh folder.

now you need to import a copy of the public key into your gpg keychain so it can recognize it has the public keys.

find a copy of the public key, and improt it either graphically or with gnupg

gpg --import my_public_key.pgp

it should automatically pick up on it.

you can fetch from keyservers incase of no local public keys avaliable

gpg --keyserver hkp://pool.sks-keyservers.net --recv-keys 12345678

hkp://pool.sks-keyservers.net should be a desired keyserver, if you already have a configured keyserver that has your oublic key, the you can omit the --keyserver option.

gpg --recv-keys 12345678

12345678 should be an identifier for the key, either the key ID, fingerprint, or an email, whatever is necessary to look through the keyserver.