I'm looking at portable-izing something that uses GPG. My hunch is that it would be good to put GPG in \PortableApps\CommonFiles\gnupg or something like that. But I notice that Thunderbird Portable seems to have ThunderbirdPortable\app\gpg as the place it looks (unless one uses the optional ThunderbirdPortable.ini).
I suppose if installing on a removable device without TBP I could create the TBP directory tree and use gpg from there (or try to).
Or I could just put a copy in another \apps\gpg ...
Or I could see if I can get CommonFiles\gnupg or gpg or something working.
I am thinking that with software like GPG, I would rather use a copy I had with me than rely on a copy on the host PC.
I have searched through the forums a bit; it seems to be a difficult problem.
If it were possible to use CommonFiles\GnuPG would that be something that TBP might eventually use?
Anyone out there have experience with GnuPG applications?
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first I moved
x:\PortableApps\TunderbirdPortable\App\gpg
to
x:\PortableApps\CommonFiles\gpg\app
and
x:\PortablApps\ThunderbirdPortable\Data\gpg
to
x:\PortableApps\CommonFiles\gpg\data
Then create ThunderbirdPortable.ini in
x:\PortableApps\ThunderbirdPortable
with the following lines
when you start up thunderbirdportable go to the preferences in the OpenPGP menu. It should say that gpg was found in
X:\PortableApps\ThunderbirdPortable\..\CommonFiles\gpg\App\gpg.exe
Double check everything is working by opening the key manager and verifying that it loads your keyring
That said, I had to do all this on a fresh install of Thunderbird portable. But that may have been any number of other tweaks pokes and prods not related to gpg that necessitated that.
This is of course not official in any way shape or form, but it does work. I too hope that gpg gets officially moved to the commonfiles location.
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You confirm what I read elsewhere in the forums.
I have experimented with it a bit myself.
That might be a solution for you and me, but I doubt many people are going to want to copy and edit an ini file.
But I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one interested.
I suppose we should think about a standard way of letting any programs know where the keyfiles are located. Again, I'm thinking of usability, like allowing it to be stored on a Truecrypt volume, or wherever, without editing an INI file.
MC
however each program keeps track of the gpg/keyring location differently. case in point, thunderbird/enigmail stores the paths in prefs.js. WinPt stores it in the registry. I think the best that can be done it to define a standard location for gpg binaries and keyrings and then let the individual portabliztion engineers work with how their specific app needs to connect to the files.
As for adding a trucrypt wrapper. I'm not sure what benefit that would offer, especially for the complexity it would require. Accessing a private key already requires a pass phrase and public keys are just that, public, no need to hide.
Key ID: 0xDAE3095F
Fingerprint: 5D98 65D2 1844 21A5 76C1 F0F6 4BE6 D689 DAE3 095F
What gpg aware app are you portableizing? Working on WinPT myself.
Key ID: 0xDAE3095F
Fingerprint: 5D98 65D2 1844 21A5 76C1 F0F6 4BE6 D689 DAE3 095F
There were several that have been mentioned, WinPT being one.
It's a pain that it uses so many registry entries.
I wanted to check out the Thunderbird key-manager facilities to see what functionality is missing and match it up with an application (e.g. for encryption/decryption/signing) that added that functionality without overlapping overly much.
MC
Enigmail can only decypt/encrypt and sign/verify messages. I haven't seen a way to use enigmail on filesystem files
WinPT seems to be the nicest that I've found for bringing decrypt/encrypt and sign/verify to files.
yes WinPT does like to use the registry, but using AutoIt I have a launcher that works, but clobbers any pre existing reg entries. when I have a free moment I will try to make it play nice and post it.
Key ID: 0xDAE3095F
Fingerprint: 5D98 65D2 1844 21A5 76C1 F0F6 4BE6 D689 DAE3 095F
Yes, that's what I meant by "functionality [that] is missing".
I suspect John would prefer that we use the technique shown in PuttyPortable using NSIS.
MC
I swear I looked at the puttyportable code when I was trying to figure this out. I thought I just saw a bunch of registry keys without any that needed modification to account for altereted drive letters. Seems my eyes missed the whole
;=== Get last drive letter ReadINIStr $0 "$SETTINGSDIRECTORY\putty.reg" "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SimonTatham\PuTTY" `"RandSeedFile"` StrCpy $1 $0 1 ;last drive letter StrCpy $2 $EXEDIR 1 ;current drive letter StrCmp $2 $1 RestoreTheKey StrCpy $3 `"PublicKeyFile"="$1:\\` StrCpy $4 `"PublicKeyFile"="$2:\\` ;MessageBox MB_OK|MB_ICONINFORMATION `$3 *** $4` ${ReplaceInFile} "$SETTINGSDIRECTORY\putty.reg" $3 $4section.
don't I feel like a dolt.
Key ID: 0xDAE3095F
Fingerprint: 5D98 65D2 1844 21A5 76C1 F0F6 4BE6 D689 DAE3 095F