Choosing “Encryption Menu” from Cone's main menu (which is available if GnuPG is installed) opens a menu with the following selections:
This selection creates a pair of public and private keys, which may be used for signing and encryption. Fill in the fields on the next screen with the appropriate information: the name, the E-mail address, and the comment associated with the keypair; how big the encryption keys should be (a different length may be chosen for creating signed content, and for creating encrypted content); whether the keys have an expiration date; and the passphrase, or a password, for the private key. The passphrase must be entered twice, in both fields, and both fields must match. Leave both passphrase fields empty to create a private key without a passphrase.
This selection deletes an existing key. Public and private keys are deleted separately. All installed keys are displayed in a vertical list. Highlight a key with the cursor, and press ENTER to delete it.
The top half of the screen shows detailed information about the current key that's highlighted by the cursor. Due to limited amount of available space, keys with more than one signatures may not have all signatures shown.
This selection signs an existing public key with one of the private keys. The public key, and the private key are selected one at a time. All installed keys are displayed in a vertical list. Highlight a key with the cursor, and press ENTER to select it.
The top half of the screen shows detailed information about the current key that's highlighted by the cursor. Due to limited amount of available space, keys with more than one signatures may not have all signatures shown.
After selecting the public key, and then the private key, the last prompt asks for the signature's trust level, which is used by GnuPG to calculate the key's trustworthiness.
This last selection provides a convenient means for accessing advanced key management features through the GnuPG application which are not directly implemented in Cone. Selecting “Edit key” shows a list of all available keys. Highlight an available key with the cursor, and press ENTER. Cone then runs GnuPG and opens GnuPG key management menu that provides access to additional key management features, such as advanced signature and passphrase management. After GnuPG exits Cone resumes running automatically.
Cone does not run while GnuPG is running, and it waits for GnuPG to finish before resuming. If GnuPG runs for an extended period of time, Cone's connections to remote mail server may be terminated due to inactivity.