2.7.2 Using S/MIME

S/MIME requires an external implementation, such as GNU Privacy Guard or OpenSSL. The default Emacs interface to the S/MIME implementation is EasyPG (see EasyPG Assistant User’s Manual in EasyPG Assistant User’s Manual), which has been included in Emacs since version 23 and which relies on the command line tool gpgsm provided by GnuPG. That tool implements certificate management, including certificate revocation and expiry, while such tasks need to be performed manually, if OpenSSL is used.

The choice between EasyPG and OpenSSL is controlled by the variable mml-smime-use, which needs to be set to the value epg for EasyPG. Depending on your version of Emacs that value may be the default; if not, you can either customize that variable or place the following line in your .emacs file (that line needs to be placed above other code related to message/gnus/encryption):

(require 'epg)

Moreover, you may want to customize the variables mml-default-encrypt-method and mml-default-sign-method to the string "smime".

That’s all if you want to use S/MIME with EasyPG, and that’s the recommended way of using S/MIME with Message.

If you think about using OpenSSL instead of EasyPG, please read the BUGS section in the manual for the smime command coming with OpenSSL first. If you still want to use OpenSSL, the following applies.

Note! The remainder of this section assumes you have a basic familiarity with modern cryptography, S/MIME, various PKCS standards, OpenSSL and so on.

The S/MIME support in Message (and MML) can use OpenSSL. OpenSSL performs the actual S/MIME sign/encrypt operations. OpenSSL can be found at http://www.openssl.org/. OpenSSL 0.9.6 and later should work. Version 0.9.5a cannot extract mail addresses from certificates, and it insert a spurious CR character into MIME separators so you may wish to avoid it if you would like to avoid being regarded as someone who send strange mail. (Although by sending S/MIME messages you’ve probably already lost that contest.)

To be able to send encrypted mail, a personal certificate is not required. Message (MML) need a certificate for the person to whom you wish to communicate with though. You’re asked for this when you type C-c C-m c s. Currently there are two ways to retrieve this certificate, from a local file or from DNS. If you chose a local file, it need to contain a X.509 certificate in PEM format. If you chose DNS, you’re asked for the domain name where the certificate is stored, the default is a good guess. To my belief, Message (MML) is the first mail agent in the world to support retrieving S/MIME certificates from DNS, so you’re not likely to find very many certificates out there. At least there should be one, stored at the domain simon.josefsson.org. LDAP is a more popular method of distributing certificates, support for it is planned. (Meanwhile, you can use ldapsearch from the command line to retrieve a certificate into a file and use it.)

As for signing messages, OpenSSL can’t perform signing operations without some kind of configuration. Especially, you need to tell it where your private key and your certificate is stored. MML uses an Emacs interface to OpenSSL, aptly named smime.el, and it contain a custom group used for this configuration. So, try M-x customize-group RET smime RET and look around.

Currently there is no support for talking to a CA (or RA) to create your own certificate. None is planned either. You need to do this manually with OpenSSL or using some other program. I used Netscape and got a free S/MIME certificate from one of the big CA’s on the net. Netscape is able to export your private key and certificate in PKCS #12 format. Use OpenSSL to convert this into a plain X.509 certificate in PEM format as follows.

$ openssl pkcs12 -in ns.p12 -clcerts -nodes > key+cert.pem

The key+cert.pem file should be pointed to from the smime-keys variable. You should now be able to send signed mail.

Note! Your private key is now stored unencrypted in the file, so take care in handling it. Storing encrypted keys on the disk are supported, and Gnus will ask you for a passphrase before invoking OpenSSL. Read the OpenSSL documentation for how to achieve this. If you use unencrypted keys (e.g., if they are on a secure storage, or if you are on a secure single user machine) simply press RET at the passphrase prompt.