Encrypt Backups with GPG

Export the key

On the trusted host, generate a keypair

gpg --output ~/backup_key.key --armor --export admin@example.com

Copy your key to the server which will be creating backups

scp ~/backup_key.key server.example.com:~/

Import the key on a server

gpg --import < ~/backup_key.key

Check that the key is present

gpg -k

Example: encrypting a database backup

This one-liner exports a mariadb database, then compresses it and encrypts using the GPG key:

sudo mysqldump my-database | gzip | gpg -r admin@example.com --encrypt -o /backups/my-database.gpg