# using enigmail in thunderbird

## BlueShift

I recently made the switch from the Evolution to the Thunderbird mail program. Everything seems to work great except for using GnuPG to sign and encrypt messages. Thunderbird was emerged while "crypt" was in my USE variable, so Enigmail should have been included, however I have no Enigmail menu in the Thunderbird menu bar. This leads me to believe that Enigmail is not correctly installed.

When I take a look at the account settings, I can include my OpenPGP key. However when I want to encrypt or sign a message I get an error message, complaining I first need to install the necessary certificate. (It seems you can do this in account settings --> security, but I don't think this has anything to do with GnuPG and I have no clue how this works) (BTW, the help function also doesn't work)

Does anybody have any experience with this?

Many thanks,

Jan.

PS: this is all on PPC Gentoo, but I doubt that would be the problem

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## trond

Try to run 

```
etcat -u mozilla-thunderbird
```

 to veriy that its compiled with enigmail. Are you using mozilla-thunerbird-bin or mozilla-thunderbird?

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## linuxkrn

Digital certs are NOT the same a GnuPG (gpg).

You need to setup enigmail under the enigmail menu and leave the Account Settings/Security stuff blank.  

Setup enigmail under preferences.  You will need to ensure you have crypt support enabled.

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## BlueShift

```
etcat -u mozilla-thunderbird
```

says that mozilla-thunderbird was compiled with the crypt use variable

(it's mozilla-thunderbird, not mozilla-thunderbird-bin)

```
 U I [ Found these USE variables in : mail-client/mozilla-thunderbird-0.8 ]

 + + crypt    : Add support for encryption -- using mcrypt or gpg where applicable

 + + gtk2     : Use gtk+-2.0.0 over gtk+-1.2 in cases where a program supports both.

 - - debug    : Tells configure and the makefiles to build for debugging. Effects vary across packages, but generally it will at least add -g to CFLAGS. Remember to set FEATURES=nostrip too

 + + java     : Adds support for Java

 - - gnome    : Adds GNOME support

 + + gtk2     : Use gtk+-2.0.0 over gtk+-1.2 in cases where a program supports both.

 - - ldap     : Adds LDAP support (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol)

 - - debug    : Tells configure and the makefiles to build for debugging. Effects vary across packages, but generally it will at least add -g to CFLAGS. Remember to set FEATURES=nostrip too

 - - xinerama : Add support for the xinerama X11 extension, which allows you to stretch your display across multiple monitors

 - - xprint   : Enable xprint support in mozilla (also firefox, thunderbird), http://www.mozilla.org/projects/xprint/

 - - moznoxft : Disable XFT support in mozilla (also firefox, thunderbird)

```

Indeed, I thought these digital certificates are not the same as GnuPG but I do not have the Enigmail menu. I did leave everything blank in Account Settings/Security.

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## jingo

No Enigmail menu here... using Thunderbird 1.0   :Sad: 

What do I do??

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## BlueShift

I also just updated to thunderbird 1.0 and enigmail is not working.

Is this working for anybody?

jingo: are you using this on regular PC or on a mac (like me)?

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## asyr

I add the enigmail extention and all works fine.

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## sunrise

Hi,

has anybody solved this problem?

for example you, BlueShift?

I've the same problem. I,ve tried thunderbird version 0.8 and 1.0.

both versions show thee same behavior.

The GnuPG options in the account settings are present, but no enigmail menu or crypt/decrypt button.

thanks

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## frilled

Hm, worked for me on multiple machines ever since enigmail showed up in the ebuilds.

Nevertheless, did you guys to try it the ususal way, that is, downloading the .xpi and installing via extension manager? At least that should work.

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## BlueShift

Ok, downloading the .xpi and installing it manually worked, I now have a working Thunderbird 1.0 + enigmail 0.89.5. Of course this means enigmail is not under portage control and will not be updated if I don't do it manually.

Thanks,

Jan.

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## frilled

 *BlueShift wrote:*   

> Ok, downloading the .xpi and installing it manually worked, I now have a working Thunderbird 1.0 + enigmail 0.89.5. Of course this means enigmail is not under portage control and will not be updated if I don't do it manually.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Jan.

 

Yeah. But since enigmail isn't in portage anyway (it's just included as goodwill inthe  thunderbird ebuild if I get that right) that's not a bad thing. Just go to Edit-Preferences->Advanced and "Check for updates to My Extensions and Themes". Looks like there's no auto-notification like in thunderbird, so just click it from time to time. Should do the trick.

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## Paranoid

I noticed this too, ever since >0.9-r2 enigmail hasn't worked unless you install the plugin manually.

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## frilled

 *Paranoid wrote:*   

> I noticed this too, ever since >0.9-r2 enigmail hasn't worked unless you install the plugin manually.

 

Well, did work for me on 4 machines up to 1.0 final. I still like to manually update to the most recent version, though.

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## penguinland

On a tangential note, I have the enigmail setup menu, but I don't know where my "GnuPG executable path" is, nor do I know what "additional parameters for GnuPG" I should use. Do I use /usr/lib/gnupg or /usr/share/gnupg? What parameters are available?

Thanks very much!

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## frilled

 *penguinland wrote:*   

> On a tangential note, I have the enigmail setup menu, but I don't know where my "GnuPG executable path" is, nor do I know what "additional parameters for GnuPG" I should use. Do I use /usr/lib/gnupg or /usr/share/gnupg? What parameters are available?

 

On Gentoo it will usually be /usr/bin/gpg (Note that the executable is not gnupg, but gpg - not Gentoo specific, though <g>)

"which gpg" will tell you the correct path. Or it should, at least  :Very Happy: 

Else try to locate it with "find" or the like.

If you don't know about the options I should say you don't need to set any. It should "just work" without. You can add later on, if you so desire. "man gpg" or "gpg --help" will help you.

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## zervus

 *wgi wrote:*   

> Just go to Edit-Preferences->Advanced and "Check for updates to My Extensions and Themes". Looks like there's no auto-notification like in thunderbird, so just click it from time to time. Should do the trick.

 

Hm, a new enigmail version is out (0.90.0), but Thunderbird keeps telling me,  that there aren't any updates available. Plus, when I go to Tools->Extensions, Enigmail is not listed there. I'm using the version that came with the current mail-client/mozilla-thunderbird (worked perfectly for me). Does anyone know whether I can safely install the XPI from Mozdev on top without breaking anything?

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## frilled

 *zervus wrote:*   

> Does anyone know whether I can safely install the XPI from Mozdev on top without breaking anything?

 

Unfortunately, no. That's a serious drawback of the ebuild (other than that, it's of cource nice to have it built automagically, but it's simply not working a 100%) which can hopefully be fixed in the future.

Until then, you would have to remove the extension by hand (see http://kb.mozillazine.org/Uninstalling_Extensions) because simply installing the new one over the other will result in trouble.

Be sure to make a backup of your "~/.thunderbird" profile directory as you will probably mess up the first couple of times you try to do it (believe me   :Wink:  ).

Good luck...

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## zervus

Thanks for your help, wgi! I'll give it a try when I worked up the courage to mess around with my Thunderbird...   :Wink: 

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## Iced-Tux

 *Quote:*   

> I had this problem as well. I believe I fixed it by removing either ~/.thunderbird/default/{random}/XUL.mfasl or ~/.thunderbird/default/{random}/chrome/chrome.rdf. Both should regenerate themselves when you start back up.
> 
> 

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