Summary
age is a useful and secure file encryption tool, format and library. We’ve recently seen the first stable release of the CLI and API.
The whole is greater than the sum of its parts is a very famous quote from Aristotle, a Greek philosopher and scientist. This quote is particularly pertinent to Linux. In our view, one of Linux’s biggest strengths is its synergy. The usefulness of Linux doesn’t derive only from the huge raft of open source (command line) utilities. Instead, it’s the synergy generated by using them together, sometimes in conjunction with larger applications.
The Unix philosophy spawned a “software tools” movement which focused on developing concise, basic, clear, modular and extensible code that can be used for other projects.This philosophy remains an important element for many Linux projects.
Good open source developers writing utilities seek to make sure the utility does its job as well as possible, and work well with other utilities. The goal is that users have a handful of tools, each of which seeks to excel at one thing.
This is one of the key goals of age. It’s designed to function as a backend for other programs, and to work together with other CLI tools by piping output.
This tool does not support scripting passphrases and offer alternatives, like a passphrase-encrypted identity file.
The process such as the key-wrapping phrase nor the symmetric stream encryption is not parallelized, so you don’t see speed improvements using the utility on machines with many cores and lots of memory.
Website: github.com/FiloSottile/age
Support:
Developer: Filippo Valsorda / Google LLC
License: BSD 3-Clause “New” or “Revised” License
age is written in Go. Learn Go with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Pages in this article:
Page 1 – Introduction / Installation
Page 2 – In Operation
Page 3 – Summary
Related Software
| CLI File Encryption Tools | |
|---|---|
| SOPS | Editor of encrypted files |
| age | Simple file encryption tool |
| GnuPG | Implementation of the OpenPGP standard |
| Sequoia PGP | Comprehensive OpenPGP implementation |
| horcrux | File splitter with encryption and redundancy |
| rage | Simple encryption tool using the age format |
| Kryptor | Simple, modern, and secure file encryption and signing tool |
| Picocrypt | Very small (hence Pico), very simple, yet very secure encryption tool |
| fscrypt | Go tool for managing Linux filesystem encryption |
| enc | Designed as a modern, approachable alternative to GnuPG |
| ccrypt | Tool for encrypting and decrypting files and streams |
| Encpipe | Billed as the simplest encryption tool in the world |
| Volaris | Encryption tool designed to prioritize privacy and security |
| eddy | Simple and fast CLI file encryption |
| Xecrets Cli | AxCrypt compatible encryption tool |
| nacrypt | Simple and easy-to-use file encryption utility |
| v02enc | Symmetric encryption for multiple recipients |
| rsecure | AES-GCM file encryption and decryption tool |
| PurrCrypt | Fur-ociously secure encryption tool |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
 Explore our comprehensive directory of recommended free and open source software. Our carefully curated collection spans every major software category.This directory is part of our ongoing series of informative articles for Linux enthusiasts. It features hundreds of detailed reviews, along with open source alternatives to proprietary solutions from major corporations such as Google, Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, IBM, Cisco, Oracle, and Autodesk. You’ll also find interesting projects to try, hardware coverage, free programming books and tutorials, and much more. Discovered a useful open source Linux program that we haven’t covered yet? Let us know by completing this form. |