Re: GnuPG passphrase in Emacs minibuffer

["Andrew L. Moore" <slewsys@gmail.com>]

On 8/21/22 01:58, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>> Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2022 00:44:25 -0400
>> From: "Andrew L. Moore" <slewsys@gmail.com>
>>
>> To allow a GnuPG passphrase in the Emacs minibuffer, I use the external
>> Emacs package pinentry.el in loopback mode*:
>>
>> (setq epg-pinentry-mode 'loopback)
>>
>> Unfortunately, this doesn't work on Debain-based systems without
>> upgrading the pinentry source (use: git://git.gnupg.org/pinentry.git).
>>
>> But it turns out that pinentry.el may not be required any more.  It is
>> enough to add to the file ~/.gnupg/gpg.conf the line:
>>
>>       pinentry-mode loopback
>>
>> and to ~/.gnupg/gpg-agent.conf:
>>
>>       allow-loopback-pinentry
>>
>> Restart gpg-agent and that's it.  The most obvious difference is that
>> pinentry.el provides a more informative prompt, e.g.,
>>
>>       [[1399721]@slewsys.org] Please enter the passphrase to unlock the
>> OpenPGP secret key:
>>       "Andrew L. Moore <alm@slewsys.org>"
>>       255-bit EDDSA key, ID 0x0AB16F2E536D3DB5,
>>       created 2021-11-01.:
>>
>> versus when GnuPG runs PINEntry in loopback mode:
>>
>>       Enter passphrase:
> 
> This is in Emacs NEWS that shipped with Emacs 26, no?

The Emacs 26 etc/NEWS article about removing pinentry.el appears to be 
incomplete.  I only see mentioned that:

     allow-emacs-pinentry

should be removed from ~/.gnupg/gpg-agent.conf.  This is necessary but 
insufficient. And reference to the variable `epg-pinentry-mode' affects 
only EasyPG, not other contexts like signing commits with Magit.

To allow Magit and other packages to enter a GnuPG passphrase in the 
Emacs minibuffer, the critical step is to add to ~/.gnupg/gpg.conf:

     pinentry-mode loopback

This works for EasyPG as well, without having to set the 
epg-pinentry-mode variable.