Re: EasyPG Assistant and emacs -nw

[Eric S Fraga]

Francis Moreau <francis.moro@gmail.com> writes:

> On Mar 8, 8:26 pm, Eric S Fraga <e.fr...@ucl.ac.uk> wrote:

[...]

>> I agree with you.  The solution I use is to have the following in my
>> emacs initialisation:
>>
>> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
>> (require 'epa)
>> (if (not window-system)
>>     (setenv "GPG_AGENT_INFO" nil)) ;to avoid graphical pop-up when on tty
>> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
>>
>> this will cause emacs to use the mini-buffer for passphrase input so it
>> solves one problems; unfortunately, it means that the passphrase is not
>> cached (i.e. by gpg-agent) so you may have to type it repeatedly.  so
>> it's not a complete solution...
>
> BTW, you could improve this a little perhaps by setting the pinentry
> program to the gtk version (pinentry-gtk) if it's installed and if
> it's not then disabling the use of gpg-agent with the environment
> variable like you did.
>
> Thanks

Thanks.  I actually do have pinentry installed and I use it all the
time.  the problem arises when I connect to my desktop *remotely* using
ssh without X (e.g. from a phone or somebody else's computer with putty,
say): the agent is running and, if the passphrase has expired, the agent
will prompt for the passphrase again using the pop-up dialog.
Unfortunately, from my ssh connection, I cannot obviously see that
dialog that has appeared on my desktop!

Anyway, I have a solution that works although it is not elegant.  Fixing
it would require gpg-agent to be much smarter about who is asking for
permission and under what conditions.  Not impossible, I guess, but it's
not necessarily emacs's fault.

-- 
: Eric S Fraga (GnuPG: 0xC89193D8FFFCF67D) in Emacs 24.0.50.1 + No Gnus v0.14