Cat encrypted files

[Richard Briggs]

I've encrypted a text file using crypt. I would like to cat the file (and not get encrypted garbage), that is to say, I'd like to
cat the file and be able to read the encrypted text.

can I cat a file that is encrypted and unencrypt on the fly?

[Patrick Wallek · Accepted solution]

To do what you want you would have to do something like:

# cat encrypted_file | decrypt_command

The 'cat' command by itself will not decrypt a file.

[Helen French]

Hi,

You can use the 'crypt' command itself to decode the file. See man pages of 'crypt' for more help.

HTH,
Shiju

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Absolutely; crypt merely works on stdin/stdout so that somethings as stupid as this works:

echo "My Secret Message" | crypt "topsecret" | crypt "topsecret"

The first crypt encrypts and the second crypt unencrypts so that the plaintext "My Secret Message" emerges at the end of the pipeline as long as the the two keys match.

[Richard Briggs]

Thank you all... it works fine to pipe it to crypt

Richard