PIN entry for Debian -------------------- This package and its sibling packages are intended to be used as a pass-phrase entry dialog for the program gpg-agent (Debian package gnupg-agent). To configure gpg-agent to use one of the provided pinentry programs, put something like this into your ~/.gnupg/gpg-agent.conf: pinentry-program /usr/bin/pinentry-FLAVOR You have the following pinentry variants to choose from: /usr/bin/pinentry Generic name that points, via the Debian alternatives system, to the "best" installed PIN entry program. gpg-agent uses this by default. /usr/bin/pinentry-x11 Generic name that points, via the Debian alternatives system, to the "best" installed PIN entry program with X11 support (that is, one of the GTK+ or Qt flavors). /usr/bin/pinentry-curses Text-mode PIN entry program that uses the curses tool kit (package pinentry-curses). /usr/bin/pinentry-gtk-2 Graphical PIN entry program that uses the GTK+ tool kit version 2 (package pinentry-gtk2). /usr/bin/pinentry-qt4 Graphical PIN entry program that uses the Qt tool kit version 4 (package pinentry-qt4). The programs pinentry-gtk-2 and pinentry-qt4 automatically fall back to the curses interface if no X Window System is available. So for example, if you frequently switch between text mode and KDE, and you want to use both Mutt and KMail with GnuPG pass-phrase agent support, then configuring /usr/bin/pinentry-qt4 would work. (In this case, leaving it at /usr/bin/pinentry would also work, since pinentry-qt4 is the preferred alternative overall, but if you prefer to use, say, pinentry-gtk-2, then you need to set it up explicitly (or manually alter the alternatives system; the possibilities abound).) Note that while pinentry-curses will work in some cases in a non-graphical environment, it is likely to fail when used while sharing a tty with a terminal-intensive program like emacs. If a graphical pinentry isn't possible, the recommended workaround is to have a curses-based pinentry attached to a separate pseudoterminal. (see https://dev.gnupg.org/T3217 for more details) Note that for the complete system to work, you also need to configure GnuPG to use the gpg-agent to get the pass phrases, and you need to configure your e-mail client to use GnuPG. These issues are not covered here. -- Daniel Kahn Gillmor <dkg@fifthhorseman.net>, Sun, 6 Aug 2017 23:52:43 -0400