Passphrase dialog window shouldn't be system modal

[macho]

The dialog that collects the user's passphrase shouldn't be modal (or at least system-wide modal) dialog. It makes things more difficult for those using password management software. By the same token, why can't the password more unobtrusively be collected from the command line?

[Seth Arnold (seth-arnold)]

You might be able to get the command-line interface you wish by removing or otherwise configuring the pinentry-gnome3 package.

Thanks

[macho (macho)]

Thanks for the suggestion. 'dpkg-reconfigure pinentry-gnome3' didn't do anything, so I installed looked through the documentation and couldn't find any relevant configuration options.

Removing the package led to enigmail failing to even prompt me for a passphrase, and hence decryption obviously failed.

Installing pinentry-gtk2 restored the same problems I had with pinentry-gnome3.

So I then tried pinentry-tty. This fixed the problem for gpg at the command-line (the modal problem at least, there still isn't a helpful title to be able to auto-type), but enigmail still didn't prompt me (perhaps it's loathe to launch a terminal window), so decryption fails.

But this does all seem to strengthen the suggestion that the problem isn't with gnupg2, but rather with either the pinentry suite or enigmail. Can you confirm and, if possible, suggest the best alternative venue to file this bug?

Thanks!

[Seth Arnold (seth-arnold)]

Macho reported this upstream at https://dev.gnupg.org/T3084