Defining PGP Transfers

Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) is an encryption program that provides cryptographic privacy and authentication for data communication. PGP is used for signing, encrypting and decrypting files within Thru.

Thru can use PGP to encrypt and decrypt files being transferred. PGP encryption and decryption can be defined in either the transfer definition or the server definition depending on whether you’re doing an upload or a download, where the file is encrypted, and whether you want to encrypt or decrypt the file.

Use the transfer definition in the following situations:

• A transfer client is uploading a PGP encrypted file and you want to decrypt this file.

  For example, a transfer client uploads a PGP encrypted file. The file should be decrypted and saved in clear text on the MFT server. The PGP Information parameter in the transfer definition needs to be configured to decrypt and verify the signature (if required).

• A transfer client is downloading a file and you want to PGP-encrypt the file downloaded by the client.

  For example, a transfer client downloads a file that must be PGP encrypted. The clear text data need to be encrypted before the data is downloaded. The PGP Information parameter in the transfer definition needs to be configured to encrypt and sign the file.

Use the server definition in the following situations:

• A transfer client is uploading a clear text file and you want to encrypt this file on the target server.

  For example, you need to PGP encrypt a file before sending it to a customer's SFTP server. The PGP Information parameter in the server definition needs to be configured to encrypt and sign the file.

• A transfer client is downloading a file that is PGP-encrypted on the target server and you want to decrypt the file.

  For example, you need to receive and decrypt a PGP-encrypted file from a customer's FTP server. The PGP Information parameter in the server definition needs to be configured to decrypt and verify the signature (if required).

You can set up transfer definitions to decrypt PGP encrypted files uploaded to MFT or to encrypt clear text files downloaded from Thru.