Key Management with Thunderbird Add-on
OpenPGP addon for Mozilla Thunderbird
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Hi, I am trying to upload my public key to the Key Management tool in
Thunderbird. Both provided options a) Downloading OpenPGP keys and b)
Import keys from file (.asc) do not work. The error is "cannot connect
to keyserver at keys.openpgp.org" Any ideas ? (Thunderbird version is
68.10.0 / Enigmail 2.1.7 on Ubuntu 18.04 ) Thanks !
If you use "Import keys from file" then the error must be something else than "cannot connect
to keyserver at keys.openpgp.org".
I don't understand what you try to achieve? Do you want to a) import you key in Enigmail, or do you want to b) publish your key on keys.openpgp.org or c) searching and downloading a key from keys.openpgp.org?
a) Means that you have your keys locally on a file and you import it, such that you can use it in Enigmail
b) Means that you have your public key and want to upload it to keys.openpgp.org, such that others can find and download it.
b) Is for searching and downloading public keys from other people to use them in Enigmail
Hi Patrick, thank you for your immediate answer. First of all, what am I
trying to achieve: I am trying to read an encrypted message i sent from
my Mac with an identity for which i already created a key pair on my
Mac. The key has been uploaded to the "keys.openpgp.org" keyserver and i
can verify it's existence easily.
Now i would like to use the Enigmail Add-on to my Thunderbird (installed
on my Linux Machine) to read encrypted e-mail. Therefore, if i
understand correctly, i need to get the public keys of the identities
(e-mail addresses) i created on my Mac into the Engimail Key Management.
I see there are several options to do that:
a) Search Keys (Keyserver specified is: keys.openpgp.org where keys have
been uploaded)
b) Import Keys from File
c) Import Keys from Clipboard
d) Import Keys from URL (which i have not yet tried)
I have tried all three of them. The error from a) is as quoted below,
ie. can't connect to the keyserver. Maybe do i need to specify the
protocol: "hkps://keys.openpgp.org" ? The error message from b) is: "No
Keys imported." when i select a public .asc file which i previously
created. It does ask me to confirm the import, but gives above error.
Option c) trying to copy and paste the whole public key did not work
either...same message as for b).
Thank you! Mark
On 16.08.20 16:10, Patrick Brunschwig wrote:
Update : I managed to get b) to work by changing the ownership of the "pubring.kbx" file from ROOT to USERNAME in .gnupg/ DIR. So, it was a mistake during the GnuPG install. a) still doesnt work.
If you want to decrypt an email, you will need your private key, not your public key. You can't upload your private key to a keyserver (well, you can -- but the keyserver will not accept it).
If you uploaded a public key to keys.openpgp.org, you will first need to confirm publication. You should receive an email containing a link that you'll need to click, otherwise your key is not published. Are you sure you did that?
The protocol "hkps://keys.openpgp.org" is invalid, Enigmail will automatically use vks://keys.openpgp.org. If you get a "can't connect to keys.openpgp.org" error, then I wonder if you are behind a firewall/proxy/similar that blocks Thunderbird from accessing the website. Note that I wrote Thunderbird: accessing the keyserver is done by Thunderbird. If you use proxy settings, you'll need to configure Thunderbird accordingly.