Controlling gpg-agent from Emacs

Controlling gpg-agent from Emacs

[Alex Bennée]

Hi,

I have a problem when running Emacs in terminal mode when triggering
things which require GPG (like "pass" to fetch a password). The pinentry
program doesn't seem to play well with Emacs causing the terminal to get
very confused.

Reading through the gpg-agent docs seems to imply it should be possible
to feed your passphrase to the agent ahead of time so it's ready to run
the decryption when gnupg is invoked (gpg-preset-passphrase). However I
can't get that to work (gpg-agent seems to think it's an unsupported
command).

I also found a shell script (https://github.com/ecraven/pinentry-emacs)
which seems to use emacsclient to prompt for a passphrase but the page
was loaded with enough caveats I haven't tried it yet.

Has anyone else got a better solution?


Cheers,

--
Alex Bennée
http://www.bennee.com/~alex

Re: Controlling gpg-agent from Emacs

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Tue, 03 Dec 2013 09:12:53 +0000 Alex Bennée <kernel-hacker@bennee.com> wrote: 

AB> I have a problem when running Emacs in terminal mode when triggering
AB> things which require GPG (like "pass" to fetch a password). The pinentry
AB> program doesn't seem to play well with Emacs causing the terminal to get
AB> very confused.

AB> Reading through the gpg-agent docs seems to imply it should be possible
AB> to feed your passphrase to the agent ahead of time so it's ready to run
AB> the decryption when gnupg is invoked (gpg-preset-passphrase). However I
AB> can't get that to work (gpg-agent seems to think it's an unsupported
AB> command).

AB> I also found a shell script (https://github.com/ecraven/pinentry-emacs)
AB> which seems to use emacsclient to prompt for a passphrase but the page
AB> was loaded with enough caveats I haven't tried it yet.

AB> Has anyone else got a better solution?

What version of GPG?

Ted

Re: Controlling gpg-agent from Emacs

[Alex Bennée]

tzz@lifelogs.com writes:

> On Tue, 03 Dec 2013 09:12:53 +0000 Alex Bennée <kernel-hacker@bennee.com> wrote: 
>
<snip>
> AB> Reading through the gpg-agent docs seems to imply it should be possible
> AB> to feed your passphrase to the agent ahead of time so it's ready to run
> AB> the decryption when gnupg is invoked (gpg-preset-passphrase). However I
> AB> can't get that to work (gpg-agent seems to think it's an unsupported
> AB> command).
>
> AB> I also found a shell script (https://github.com/ecraven/pinentry-emacs)
> AB> which seems to use emacsclient to prompt for a passphrase but the page
> AB> was loaded with enough caveats I haven't tried it yet.
>
> AB> Has anyone else got a better solution?
>
> What version of GPG?

gnupg 2.0.20-1ubuntu3
gnupg-agent 2.0.20-1ubuntu3

I take it this option was removed?


Cheers,

--
Alex Bennée
http://www.bennee.com/~alex

Re: Controlling gpg-agent from Emacs

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Fri, 06 Dec 2013 09:49:47 +0000 Alex Bennée <kernel-hacker@bennee.com> wrote: 

AB> tzz@lifelogs.com writes:

>> On Tue, 03 Dec 2013 09:12:53 +0000 Alex Bennée <kernel-hacker@bennee.com> wrote: 
>> 
AB> <snip>
AB> Reading through the gpg-agent docs seems to imply it should be possible
AB> to feed your passphrase to the agent ahead of time so it's ready to run
AB> the decryption when gnupg is invoked (gpg-preset-passphrase). However I
AB> can't get that to work (gpg-agent seems to think it's an unsupported
AB> command).
>> 
AB> I also found a shell script (https://github.com/ecraven/pinentry-emacs)
AB> which seems to use emacsclient to prompt for a passphrase but the page
AB> was loaded with enough caveats I haven't tried it yet.
>> 
AB> Has anyone else got a better solution?
>> 
>> What version of GPG?

AB> gnupg 2.0.20-1ubuntu3
AB> gnupg-agent 2.0.20-1ubuntu3

AB> I take it this option was removed?

Yeah, I complained about it too but from another angle (you can't cache
the EPA/EPG passphrase in Emacs anymore, like you could with GnuPG 1.x).
Based on Daiki Ueno's explanations in emacs-devel[1] and in the bug
reports[2] , I don't think we can expect improvements for the users
here (it's a conscious decision by the GnuPG project).

To avoid depending on the GnuPG project's decisions and for other
reasons I want to implement native encryption in Emacs and submitted
patches to that end.  Stefan requested that we get external loading of
libraries through FFI and other mechanisms working first[3].  This is a
much more complex task and AFAIK no one bu me wants to implement it.  So
it will take a while; help is welcome.  Meanwhile the best advice is to
downgrade to GnuPG 1.x.

Ted

[1] https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2013-10/msg00075.html
[2] http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=15552
[3] https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2013-10/msg00168.html