Encrypt and decrypt:

# openssl des -salt -in file -out file.des

# openssl des -d -salt -in file.des -out file

Note that the file can of course be a tar archive.

# tar -cf - directory | openssl des -salt -out directory.tar.des # Encrypt

# openssl des -d -salt -in directory.tar.des | tar -x # Decrypt

# tar -zcf - directory | openssl des -salt -out directory.tar.gz.des # Encrypt

# openssl des -d -salt -in directory.tar.gz.des | tar -xz # Decrypt

• Use -k mysecretpassword after des to avoid the interactive password request. However note that this is highly insecure.

• Use des3 instead of des to get even stronger encryption (Triple-DES Cipher). This uses also more CPU.