invoking the GPC-AGENT and to initially firing up the agent to run enigmail - How To!?

hello dear OpenSuse-friends,

i currently stuck to the process “invoking the GPC-AGENT” , as a prerequisite for Thunderbird and enigmail .

i am trying to initially firing up the agent to run enigmail
i am currently configuring all the prerequesites for the thunderbird and enigmail

at the moment i have a vanilla-installation of opensuse 12.3 on my notebook - all is fresh - no old data or credentials are used.
The whole systme is new and fresh.

see the following data - of the operating system and the rest of fresh installation
note - i do not need to import all the mails - i only need to import the credentials. and i have managed this.

so to sume up what is gained: what is on the machine; - the following things:

operating-system; OpenSuse 12.3
Thunderbird Version 17.0.5
gpg2 - GnuPG 2
GnuPG 2 is the successor of “GnuPG” or GPG. It provides: GPGSM, gpg-agent, and a keybox library.
version 2.0.19-5.1.1. i 586 OpenSuse 12.3-1.7 mit Prioritäg 99
libassuan0 - IPC library used by GnuPG version 2
version 2.0.3-2.1.1 i586 OpenSuse 12.3-1.7 mit Prioritäg 99
libgpgme11 - a library that allows the access of programmes to GnuPG.

again: well and i ve done a import of the credentials and password files into the KGpg
in KGpg all the passwords are included.

By the way - i do not want to use openPGP. i prefer the usage of KGpg

The question now is: how to proceed the next steps are to look for the correct installation and configuring of gnupg.

martin@linux-70ce:~/perl> 
martin@linux-70ce:~/perl>      gpg --version
gpg (GnuPG) 2.0.19
libgcrypt 1.5.0
Copyright (C) 2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

Home: ~/.gnupg
Unterstützte Verfahren:
Öff. Schlüssel: RSA, ELG, DSA
Verschlü.: IDEA, 3DES, CAST5, BLOWFISH, AES, AES192, AES256, TWOFISH, CAMELLIA128, 
            CAMELLIA192, CAMELLIA256
Hash: MD5, SHA1, RIPEMD160, SHA256, SHA384, SHA512, SHA224
Komprimierung: nicht komprimiert, ZIP, ZLIB, BZIP2
martin@linux-70ce:~/perl> ^C
martin@linux-70ce:~/perl> 

On this page here - Invoking GPG-AGENT - Using the GNU Privacy Guard
a short descripton on Invoking GPG-AGENT shows how to do things.

**question: **how to invoke the gnupg? and very very important for me is the question -
Do i have to invoke this GPC-AGENT for one or how many user!?

It is best not to run multiple instance of the gpg-agent, so you should make sure that only one is running.

How to make sure that i do invoke the GPC-AGENT only one time and not twice or three times.

Which steps are needet - what do i need to get enigmail up and running!?

love to hear from you

greetings

**2 Invoking GPG-AGENT
**
gpg-agent is a daemon to manage secret (private) keys independently from any protocol.
It is used as a backend for gpg and gpgsm as well as for a couple of other utilities.
The usual way to run the agent is from the ~/.xsession file:

     eval $(gpg-agent --daemon)

If you don’t use an X server, you can also put this into your regular startup file ~/.pro file or .bash_profile.
It is best not to run multiple instance of the gpg-agent, so you should make sure that only one is running:
gpg-agent uses an environment variable to inform clients about the communication parameters. You can write
the content of this environment variable to a file so that you can test for a running agent.
Here is an example using Bourne shell syntax:

     gpg-agent --daemon --enable-ssh-support \
               --write-env-file "${HOME}/.gpg-agent-info"

This code should only be run once per user session to initially fire up the agent.
In the example the optional support for the included Secure Shell agent is enabled and the information about the agent is written to a file in the HOME directory. Note that by running gpg-agent without arguments you may test whether an agent is already running;
however such a test may lead to a race condition, thus it is not suggested.

The second script needs to be run for each interactive session:

     if  -f "${HOME}/.gpg-agent-info" ]; then
       . "${HOME}/.gpg-agent-info"
       export GPG_AGENT_INFO
       export SSH_AUTH_SOCK
     fi

see also:
Invoking GPG-AGENT - Using the GNU Privacy Guard

love to hear from you

greetings

I’ll assume that you mean “gpg-agent”.

For me, it is automatically started. I assume something done during startup checks whether “.gnupg” exists in the home directory, and if it exists “gpg-agent” is started.

So maybe you just need to logout and then login again (assuming that you have already imported “.gnupg” as you indicated in another thread).

When running opensuse 12.2, I noticed that:
gpg-agent is automatically started if desktop login is via KDM.
If GDM is used, then “gpg-agent” is started for a login to KDE, seahorse is started for a login to Gnome, and maybe seahorse is started for XFCE depending on whether Gnome support is enabled. I’m guessing that it is probably the same for 12.3, though I have not tested.

On 2013-05-26 01:36, dilbertone wrote:

> at the moment i have a vanilla-installation of opensuse 12.3 on my
> notebook - all is fresh - no old data or credentials are used.
> The whole systme is new and fresh.

You simply start kgpg and create one credential, that should create all
the requisites.

IIRC, the agent is started automatically if on settings you define kgpg
to be started automatically at login, that’s all.

There is also a setting there, under the GnuPG settings, to “use GnuPG
agent”, you try activate it if the previous is not enough or does not work.

> note - i do not need to import all the mails - i only need to import
> the credentials. and i have managed this.

Then you need to copy the old .gnupg directory. Or some of the files at
least: pubring.gpg and secring.gpg, I think. But not if you already have
imported your old keys in kgpg.

> The question now is: how to proceed the next steps are to look for the
> correct installation and configuring of gnupg.

> On this page here - ‘Invoking GPG-AGENT - Using the GNU Privacy Guard’
> (http://tinyurl.com/2kpeja)
> a short descripton on Invoking GPG-AGENT shows how to do things.
>
>
> *question: *how to invoke the gnupg? and very very important for me is
> the question -
> Do i have to invoke this GPC-AGENT for one or how many user!?

Ignore all that, it is obsolete. For KDE, at least.


Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 12.1 x86_64 “Asparagus” at Telcontar)

hello dear Robin, hello dear Nrickert, :wink:

many thanks for the answer and all the hints. As allways your answers are found to be very supportive and helpful.
note - as i say below - i have (after getting kgpg to work ) generated a new key. so i guess that i now did all what is necessary to run the gnugpg-agent.
so i think that i have applied the tipps of you - robin.
and now i think all necessary things are done - to proeceed running (and using) thundermail and enigmail.

…well now i am facing a new problem. **
**
kgpg does not start while kgpg -k does

well i thougth that kgpg should start at start up of the computer but it can’t:

if i get it starting up with the command kgpg -k in console then it runs - but not with an other way to start - in system tray
nothing happens.

if you press the button - nothing happens.

by the way - after

i have set up a new key-pair
so i guess that i now have all done that is needed to invoke the gpg-agent

but the question is: do i need to start KGpg in the terminal

starting it with the command kgpg -k in console seems to work

everytime i close kgpg - then the only way to restart is - by doing this via the command in terminal
the other (alternative) way - starting it with some clicks in the sytem tray - does not work at all.

why is this so!?

**on a sidenote: **i had this issue once upon a time on a earlier installation - guess robin you remembers this.

look forward to hear from you
greetings
dilbertone

btw - some guys in the kde-forums discuss the same issue:
http://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=225&t=110915&p=265690#p265690

On 2013-05-26 11:06, dilbertone wrote:
>
> hello dear Robin, hello dear Nrickert, :wink:
>
>
>
> many thanks for the answer and all the hints. As allways your answers
> are found to be very supportive and helpful.
> note - as i say below - i have (after getting kgpg to work ) generated
> a new key. so i guess that i now did all what is necessary to run the
> gnugpg-agent.

Notice that you are not to use “gpg-agent”, kgpg does it.

> so i think that i have applied the tipps of you - robin.
> and now i think all necessary things are done - to proeceed running
> (and using) thundermail and enigmail.
>
>
> …well now i am facing a new problem. *
>
> KGPG DOES NOT START WHILE
KGPG -K DOES
> well i thougth that kgpg should start at start up of the computer but
> it can’t:

Well, that’s a different issue. As I don’t normally use KDE I can’t help
you further if it refuses to start on its own.

For me, simply runing “kgpg” in a terminal does it, the icon appears in
my panel - inside XFCE, which is what I’m using.

Are you sure it is not starting? Running kgpg in a terminal “appears” to
do nothing, as it exits. But the icon is down below.


Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 12.1 x86_64 “Asparagus” at Telcontar)

In KDE it is a hidden icon. You have to click on the little triangle in the tray to find it.

On 2013-05-26 14:36, nrickert wrote:
>
> robin_listas;2560273 Wrote:
>> Are you sure it is not starting? Running kgpg in a terminal “appears” to
>> do nothing, as it exits. But the icon is down below.
>
> In KDE it is a hidden icon. You have to click on the little triangle
> in the tray to find it.

Ah…

I see in the setup dialog, Misc, Applet & Menus, there is a tick box
named “show system tray icon”.


Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 12.1 x86_64 “Asparagus” at Telcontar)

hello dear Robin hello dear Nrickert

many many thanks for the answers and the supportive guidance. Now the probllems are solved.

All runs nicely and the thunderbird works as it should. i can read the encrypted mails.
So - to say it in one word,. i finally was able to port over the thunderbird with all the necessary things on a second notebook
And i am able to work with it - with enigmail and all the needed stuff.

Note - all this was necesary to do further steps
a. to bring opensuse to a second laptop (which was my “day to day-laptop” with some important applications such as

  • thunderbird and enigmail
  • filecilla sftp-access to a server… (which port over currently makes some issues but that are minor ones. i guess)
  • lots of data - (which have been ported over - and burned to DVD)

as i see - i am very very close to the final steps - to do a fresh installation on that laptop - and apply your good tipps and hints - you made here.
https://forums.opensuse.org/english/get-technical-help-here/install-boot-login/487283-partition-table-does-one-make-sense-fresh-install-os-12-3-a.html

again - many many thanks

have a great day
dilbert

**
ps - i will sign this thread as solved! - ahhh - not possible - since the edit after 10 minutes after intial posting is not possible… **
btw: also very good - this documentation: http://docs.kde.org/stable/en/kdeutils/kgpg/kgpg.pdf