Template Version: @(#)sac_nextcase 1.68 02/23/09 SMI
This information is Copyright 2009 Sun Microsystems
1. Introduction
1.1. Project/Component Working Name:
Seahorse Update and Seahorse Plugins
1.2. Name of Document Author/Supplier:
Author: Jeff Cai
1.3 Date of This Document:
02 November, 2009
4. Technical Description
This information is Copyright 2008 Sun Microsystems
1. Introduction
1.1. Project/Component Working Name:
Seahorse Update and Seahorse Plugins for OpenSolaris
1.2. Name of Document Author/Supplier:
Author: Jeff Cai
1.3 Date of This Document:
21 October, 2009
4. Technical Description
1. Introduction
1.1. Project/Component Working Name:
Seahorse Update and Seahorse Plugins
1.2. Name of Document Author/Supplier:
Author: Jeff Cai
Sponsor: Jeff Cai
1.3. Date of This Document:
10/29/2009
1.4. Name of Major Document Customer(s)/Consumer(s):
1.4.1. The PAC or CPT you expect to review your project:
Solaris PAC
1.4.2. The ARC(s) you expect to review your project:
LSARC
1.4.3. The Director/VP who is "Sponsoring" this project:
Robert O'Dea
1.4.4. The name of your business unit:
Software - OPG
1.5. Email Aliases:
1.5.1. Responsible Manager: harry.lu at sun.com
1.5.2. Responsible Engineer: jeff.cai at sun.com
1.5.3. Marketing Manager: glynn.foster at sun.com
1.5.4. Interest List: brian.cameron at sun.com
darren.moffat at sun.com
wyllys.ingersoll at sun.com
2. Project Summary
2.1. Project Description:
Seahorse is a GNOME application for managing SSH, PGP keys and GNOME
keyrings.
This update enables PGP support of Seahorse after GnuPG's integration.
Thus with Seahorse a user can create and manage PGP keys.
Seahorse Plugins integrates with nautilus and gedit for
encryption/decryption operations.
After GnuPG's integration, the PGP security support is also enabled in
Evolution.
Please refer to sections below for more information about how GnuPG
is used in Nautilus, gedit, and Evolution.
4. Technical Description:
As a frontend of GnuPG, all operations on PGP keys are implemented by GnuPG
or GPGME.
After enabling PGP supports in Seahorse, following new features are added.
4.1 Create and Manage PGP keys
To create a PGP key using seahorse, the user needs to give a description
of what the key is to be used for. The user needs to specify the
encryption type (DSA Elgamal, RSA or DSA),
the key strength (768-4096) and the passphrase for the key.
The user can list or delete PGP keys. The user can also change the
passphrase for them.
Seahorse invokes the interface functions provided by GPGME or 'gpg' command
line to finish all these operations.
4.2 Exporting and Importing PGP Keys
Seahorse can import PGP keys from the clipboard or a key file the same way
as SSH keys.
Seahorse allows users to specify a PGP key file. Then Seahorse invokes APIs
provided by GPGME to import the key.
Users can also export PGP private or public keys to files.
4.3 Signing the key
Seahorse allows a user to sign a public PGP key with a private PGP key.
It also provides UI to allow the user to revoke it.
4.4 Retrieve PGP public keys from servers or publish them to servers
Keeps the user's and other's keys up to date by syncing keys periodically
with remote key servers. Syncing will make sure that the user has the
latest signatures made on all of the keys so that the web of trust
will be the most useful.
Seahorse provides support for HKP and LDAP key servers.
HKP Servers
HKP keyservers are ordinary web based keyservers such as the popular
hkp://pgp.mit.edu:11371, also accessible at http://pgp.mit.edu.
Seahorse uses libsoup to access HKP servers.
LDAP Keyservers
LDAP keyservers are less common, but use the standard LDAP protocol
to serve keys. ldap://keyserver.pgp.com is a good LDAP server.
Seahorse uses sunldap to access LDAP servers.
4.5 Seahorse plugin for gedit
This plugin adds three menu items in the gedit's 'Edit' menu:
Sign, Decrypt/Verify and Encrypt.
These menu options allow the user to sign/verify or encrypt/decrypt the
selected text.
As a client of seahorse-daemon, it calls DBus interfaces provided in
seahorse-daemon to finish all operations.
4.6 Seahorse plugin for Nautilus
This plugin enables the user to sign/verify or encrypt/decrypt
files in Nautilus.
After a file is signed or encrypted in Nautilus, a file with the same
name but with a pgp or sig extension will be created.
The user can also verify/decrypt the file in Nautilus.
Nautilus calls a command line helper program 'seahorse-tool' which uses
GPGME to finish the encryption operations.
4.7 Encryption settings
The user can use seahorse-preferences to configure some settings which
include:
* Default Key
This is the key that will be used by applications and plugins to sign
files. It will also be the key that files will be encrypted to if
encrypt to self is selected.
The default key id is saved in gconf
~/.gconf/desktop/pgp/default_key
* When encrypting, always include myself as a recipient
If the user does not select this checkbox, then the user is not included
as a recipient, he will not be able to decrypt any files he encrypts.
Sometimes the file will be encrypted using the other person's public key,
then the file may be shared with that person in many ways such as email,
a website, USB drive or IM messenger. If the sender just wants to send
an encrypted file and he still has the non-encrypted copy, he doesn't
need to encrypt to self.
This setting is saved in gconf and its default value is 'true'.
4.8 Passphrase cache
seahorse-agent helps the user cache the passphrase so that the user
can perform many operations that require entering the passphrase without
re-entering it every time. It takes place of gpg-agent.
There are several configurations for the passphrase cache:
* Never remember passphrases,
* Remember passphreases for ... minutes,
* Always remember passphrases whenever logged in
* Ask me before using a cached passphrase
4.9 Encryption Applet
Encryption Applet performs the various encryption operations using
standard OpenPGP methods. It operates on both the Ctrl-C/V and the
select/middle click clipboards. Simply copy the desired text using
the method of the user's choice, select the encryption operation from
the left click menu, follow the prompts and paste the new contents
of the clipboard into your application or view them in a display
window.
4.10 Enable PGP security for Evolution
With the integration of GnuPG, PGP security is enabled in Evolution.
The user can sign/verify or encrypt/descrypt email messages.
Evolution calls 'gpg' command line to finish all the operations.
4.11 Interfaces:
Following interfaces will be added:
Exported Interfaces
Interface Classification Comments
--------------- -------------- ------------------
SUNWseahorse-plugins Uncommitted Package name
SUNWseahorse-plugins-root Uncommitted Package name
~/.gconf/desktop/pgp Volatile Config file for
seahorse-preferences.
/usr/bin/seahorse-agent Volatile seahorse GPG agent for
caching
PGP passphrase.
/usr/bin/seahorse-preferences Volatile preferences for
configuring encryption
and passphrases cache.
/usr/bin/seahorse-tool Volatile a helper program that
will encrypt/decrypt
or sign/verify a file
/usr/lib/bonobo/servers/
GNOME_SeahorseApplet.server Volatile the bonobo file for
seahorse applet
/usr/lib/gedit-2/plugins/ligseahorse-pgp.so
Volatile seahorse plugin library
for gedit
/usr/lib/gedit-2/plugins/seahorse-pgp.gedit-plugin
Volatile seahorse plugin
description file for gedit
/usr/lib/nautilus/extensions-2.0/
libnautilus-seahorse.so Volatile the library file of
seahorse plugin for Nautilus
/usr/lib/seahorse/seahorse-applet
Volatile seahorse applet
/usr/share/applications/seahorse-pgp-encrypted.desktop
Volatile
desktop file for mime
type 'application/pgp-encrypted'
/usr/share/applications/seahorse-pgp-keys.desktop
Volatile
desktop file for mime
type 'application/pgp-keys'
/usr/share/applications/seahorse-pgp-prepferences.desktop
Volatile
desktop file for
seahorse-preferences
/usr/share/applications/seahorse-pgp-signature.desktop
Volatile
desktop file for mime
type 'application/pgp-signature'
/usr/share/doc/SUNWseahorse-plugins/*
Volatile doc files for seahorse
plugins
/usr/share/man/man1/seahorse-*
Volatile man pages
/usr/share/mime/packages/seahorse.xml
Volatile a file defines new mime
types
/usr/share/seahorse-plugins/glade/*
Project Private glade files
/etc/gconf/schemas/seahorse-gedit.schemas
Volatile seahorse plugin schema
file for gedit
/etc/gconf/schemas/seahorse-plugins.schemas
Volatile schema file of
seahorse-agent and seahorse-applet
Imported Interfaces
Interface Classification Comments
--------------- --------------- -----------------------
GnuPG Uncommitted PSARC/2009/397
GPGME Uncommitted PSARC/2009/397
sunldap Volatile PSARC/1997/276
libsoup Volatile LSARC/2003/298
libgpg-error Volatile LSARC/2008/207
4.12 Packaging & Delivery:
Two new packages are delivered.
SUNWseahorse-plugins
SUNWseahorse-plugins-root
4.13 Security Impact:
Seahorse is just a GUI front-end GnuPG, so all encryption related tasks
are managed by GnuPG.
Seahorse syncs public keys with key servers using the protocols LDAP and
HKP. The communication with the server is not encrypted.
It is the user's responsibility to ensure the public key is valid or
trusted.
Seahorse and Seahorse Plugins, like all GUI programs, depends on Xauth
security.
These tools under review do not save sensitive information to files
directly. Instead, GnuPG does.
4.9 Dependencies:
Seahorse depends on GnuPG and GPGME to operate on PGP keys.
Seahorse depends on sun ldap and libsoup to access key servers.
5. References
[1] Seahorse DBus Interfaces:
http://live.gnome.org/Seahorse/DBus
[2] Project page:
http://www.gnome.org/projects/seahorse
6. Resources and Schedule
6.4. Steering Committee requested information
6.4.1. Consolidation C-team Name:
Desktop
6.5. ARC review type: FastTrack
6.6. ARC Exposure: open
6. Resources and Schedule
6.4. Steering Committee requested information
6.4.1. Consolidation C-team Name:
OSD
6.5. ARC review type: FastTrack
6.6. ARC Exposure: open
