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How to Use Legacy RSA Keys

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outer

27 Nov, 2012 06:26 PM

MacBookPro9,1; Mountain Lion OS X 10.8.2 (12C3006)

GPG Keychain Access 1.0b8
GPG Mail from GPGTools-ML1.pkg 2012-10-05

I cannot use a "legacy" RSA 2048 bit key, or that is to say my
password for it is unrecognized by both the above applications.

NOTE WELL: I can unlock and use the very same "legacy" RSA
key from within Symantec's MacPGP Desktop Pro (or whatever
it is they're calling it today) v10.2.1MP5 under Lion (10.7.x).

I have tried exporting it from 10.2.1MP5 and then importing it:
import works fine, but still can't unlock the key with what I can
only presume to be the correct password.

Any suggestions?

1. 1 Posted by outer on 27 Nov, 2012 06:49 PM

   

   I can use (unlock) the key using self-compiled gpg 1.4.12.

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2. Support Staff 2 Posted by Luke Le on 27 Nov, 2012 11:45 PM

   

   We have one other user who's seeing the same problem with an old key.
   Unfortunately it's super hard to test what the problem could be, but somehow I think it's something in the gnupg 2.x source code after 2.0.17, since our own changes for OS X aren't that invasive.

   I'll keep you posted if we find out more.

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3. 3 Posted by outer on 28 Nov, 2012 02:00 AM

   

   oddly enough, everything seems to work fine, including ML Mail, after I reinstalled my (as you would have it) "home brew" version of gpg2.

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4. Support Staff 4 Posted by Luke Le on 28 Nov, 2012 02:11 AM

   

   Very interesting. Do you have a build script for flag comparison by any chance?
   There's a good chance we're overlooking something. Also, which version of GPG2 is that?

   Btw, we're really sorry that you've had such a bad experience with the GPGTools installer. It's built to be as easy and straight forward for novice users but definitely still might be smarter for users with their own installation of GPG. If you have any ideas on how to improve on that we're listening!

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5. 5 Posted by outer on 28 Nov, 2012 03:07 AM

   

   No, you're right. With my own gpg2 installed everything actually stops working. :-(

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6. 6 Posted by outer on 28 Nov, 2012 04:04 AM

   

   So sorry. You broke my heart. Now going to uninstall. Nothing more to say.

   On 2012-11-27 (332), at 21:11:56, Luke Le <[email blocked]> wrote:

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7. 7 Posted by outer on 28 Nov, 2012 05:15 PM

   

   hope it helps.

   Building gpg2 v2.0.19

   2012-03-29
   Lion 10.7.3
   Xcode 4.3.2

   and thence under

   2012-11-27
   Mountain Lion 10.8.2
   Xcode 4.5.2

   1) Use this configure string (the 1st two options don't seem to help with #2, but
   they don't seem to hurt much either):

   ./configure --without-libiconv-prefix --with-libiconv-prefix=/usr --disable-nls --enable-symcryptrun --enable-gpgtar

   2) The build of gpgtar will fail. cd to tools/, and use this command (just believe me):

   gcc -I/usr/local/include -I/usr/local/include -g -O2 -Wall -Wno-pointer-sign -Wpointer-arith -o gpgtar gpgtar-gpgtar.o gpgtar-gpgtar-create.o gpgtar-gpgtar-extract.o gpgtar-gpgtar-list.o gpgtar-no-libgcrypt.o ../common/libcommon.a ../jnlib/libjnlib.a ../gl/libgnu.a -L/usr/local/lib -lgpg-error -L/usr/lib -liconv

   3) Then switch back to . and re-run make.

   4) Note that "make clean" will remove two files from common/ (status.h and
   status_codes.h) that are NOT recreated by the next build.

   5) The PKITS tests will fail unless the PKITS database archive is installed in test/pkits/
   before running "make check" (and even then the 1st four pkits tests will fail).

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8. Support Staff 8 Posted by Luke Le on 28 Nov, 2012 05:17 PM

   

   And with this version you're able to properly use your legacy keys?

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9. Support Staff 9 Posted by Steve on 20 Jan, 2013 07:47 PM

   

   No further user feedback. Closing.

   @Outer: Should your problem persist, feel free to re-open this discussion any time.

   All the best,
   steve

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10. Steve closed this discussion on 20 Jan, 2013 07:47 PM.