Encrypting Files using OpenSSL

Gregg

Let’s say we have a file that contains sensitive information and we want to encyrpt it. You can encrypt a file very easily using the openssl command:

$ cat secret.txt This file contains some very secret stuff $ openssl enc -e -aes-256-cbc -pbkdf2 -a -salt -in secret.txt -out secret.enc enter aes-256-cbc encryption password: <enter-a-password> Verifying - enter aes-256-cbc encryption password: <enter-a-password> $ cat secret.enc U2FsdGVkX19Rnz48WjLeljd19wvNOhQy+zzYwxCANezCTkqpGMl9zs4HdwdUzZjl VQkUsCJ7b0rUpRi83UlcwA==

Now we decrypt it (output to a different file). Make sure you enter the same password that you input above:

$ openssl enc -d -aes-256-cbc -pbkdf2 -a -salt -in secret.enc -out unencrypted-secret.txt enter aes-256-cbc decryption password: <enter-a-password> $ cat unencrypted-secret.txt This file contains some very secret stuff $