Kiki Patterns ============= Although kiki seems at a glance to have a lot of commands, there is a simple rule for quickly learning six of them at once, by understanding that they are all actually variations of one command which means 'exchange information'. The variations come from first choosing one of 3 directions of information flow (from, to, or both ways), and then choosing from one of 2 different kinds of filters on information to exchange(public only, or unfiltered). The 'from' and 'to' are always relative to your $HOME/.gnupgp folder (or wherever you have configured to be your $GNUPGHOME). A 'from'-command copies information from your $GNUPGHOME to files in other locations. A 'to'-command copies information into keyrings inside $GNUPGHOME from other locations. Consult the table below to learn the six 'exchange-information' commands of kiki: from | to | public | secret --------------|------|----|--------|----------- import-public | X | | X | export-public | | X | X | sync-public | X | X | X | import-secret | X | | X | X export-secret | | X | X | X sync-secret | X | X | X | X The four columns of this table are explained thusly: from: information flows out of $GNUPGHOME to: information flows into $GNUPGHOME public: public information is copied secret: private information is copied Note that the sync-secret command is the most powerful command, capable of exchanging information of either variety and in either direction and simultaneously. Indeed, the presence of the other 5 commands is merely to make kiki less error prone. The idea being, if you use import-public it is impossible to accidentally copy secret data to your keyring and impossible to accidentally expose any data at all from your keyring.