Sylpheed_portable 3.1.3

I posted yesterday about compiling Cryptofs:
http://bkhome.org/archive/blog2/201203/cryptofs-060.html

And the day before that about the need for a "portable" email client:
http://bkhome.org/archive/blog2/201203/truly-portable-sylpheed.html

Well, I was up to 3am working on it, but the sylpheed_portable PET has arrived (1MB):
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/pet_packages-wary5/sylpheed_portable-3.1.3-cryptofs0.6.0-bogofilter1.2.2-w5c.pet

To make it completely self-sufficient, requiring no dependencies, it has Cryptofs and Bogofilter inside it. The only deps are 'fuse' and 'sqlite3', that all puppies have. I haven't tested Bogofilter.

When you install this PET, it installs to /usr/local/sylpheed_portable, but doesn't actually run from there. When you run it, it asks to be copied to a partition, from whence it can be run into the future. Any partition, USB Flash drives also.

The reason that it installs first into /usr/local/sylpheed_portable is so that Woof-built-puppies can have it in their package list. It will be there, looking like any normal Sylpheed, runnable via the menu or the 'email' desktop icon, but the first time you run it, it gets relocated wherever you want it.

When it is finally installed in a mounted partition, it is just a RoxApp that you click to run. All configuration files and downloaded email are encrypted, and when you run Sylpheed you are asked for a password. Everything gets decrypted for the duration that you are using Sylpheed, then locked up again when you quit Sylpheed.

I'm using it with all the emails that I downloaded from Gmail, all 6,500 of them. Strangely, it seems faster accessing them via cryptofs than before.

Can we give the same "portable" treatment to Thunderbird/SeaMonkey-Mail? I don't know, will have to experiment -- sometime, don't know when.

Today will take some time off for family stuff -- someone's birthday, plus the old folks like to be visited.

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Comments

Sylpheed English only
Username: BarryK
Note that I have not internationalized the /usr/local/sylpheed_portable/run installation/wrapper script. I wanted to make sure that testers like how it works first, and of course be sure that it has no bugs.

GnuPG plugin
Username: BarryK
"Regarding the GnuPG plugin for Sylpheed, my understanding is that this is different from what I have done. GnuPG is used to encrypt emails when they are posted, for security enroute. My implementation is a generic technique that makes all files secure when Sylpheed is not in use. That is, if your Flash pen drive is stolen, no problem. You can also make backup copies of the 'sylpheed_portable' directory and they will also be secure (and each of them independently runnable, as long as you know the password).

Correction
Username: BarryK
"[i]You can also make backup copies of the 'sylpheed_portable' directory and they will also be secure (and each of them independently runnable, as long as you know the password)[/i] ...er, I might have hard-coded the folder name to be 'sylpheed_portable'. Might have to modify the 'run' script to handle other names, like a backup folder named 'sylpheed_portable-20120309'.

my experience
Username: esmourguit
"I tested sylpheed_portable on Racy 5.2.2.8. I followed the installation process and everything went well. I downloaded my emails (160) very quickly. I closed and opened several times the sylpheed_portable directory cliking on it and every time I entered the password (twice) and Sylpheed opened without problem. It took less than an hour. But unfortunately after the sixth or seventh time he has not accepted the password (bad password,) although I typed the correct twice each time.

Re bad password
Username: BarryK
"esmourguit, You can test it on the commandline. Open a terminal inside folder 'sylpheed_portable' on your mounted partition. You will see two folders Mail.encrypted and sylpheed-config.encrypted -- these have the encrypted files. You will also see two folders Mail and sylpheed-config -- these will have normal unencrypted files when cryptofs is mounted. To mount: [i]# export PATH=`pwd`/bin:$PATH # cryptofs --root=sylpheed-config.encrypted sylpheed-config[/i] ...it will ask for password. If you have entered correct password, then you will see unencrypted files inside folder sylpheed-config. The 'run' script checks that the correct password was used by looking for a file named sylpheed-config/sanity -- if it exists, then the correct password was used. When finished, unmount: [i]# fusermount -u sylpheed-config[/i]

my experience
Username: esmourguit
"Thank you Barry I followed your instructions, I entered the password and actually, I was able to access the emails. But in this case, when I type the same password, why I can not enter directly in Sylpheed?

Re cryptofs
Username: BarryK
"esmourguit, I presume that you are asking me about running Sylpheed directly from the terminal. There are two folders that have to be decrypted: [i]# export PATH=`pwd`/bin:$PATH # cryptofs --root=sylpheed-config.encrypted sylpheed-config # cryptofs --root=Mail.encrypted Mail # sylpheed[/i] Then afterward: [i]# fusermount -u sylpheed-config # fusermount -u Mail[/i] That should work. I am puzzled that the 'run' script has gone wrong for you. I will need to do some more testing of it.

Sylpheed correction
Username: BarryK
"esmourguit, Oops, the line to run Sylpheed should have been: [i]sylpheed --configdir `pwd`/sylpheed-config[/i]

run in terminal
Username: esmourguit
"Thanks Barry, but here are the results : # export PATH=`pwd`/bin:$PATH # cryptofs --root=sylpheed-config.encrypted sylpheed-config Enter password: # cryptofs --root=Mail.encrypted Mail Enter password: # sylpheed --configdir `pwd`/sylpheed-config bash: sylpheed: command not found However sylpheed-config and Mail are populated.

Got Sylpheed working on Racy
Username: tkc47
"Having read esmourguit's problem, when I installed sylpheed, I made sure I had a backup of my files. Sure enough I had the same problem. Got the same code, etc. I deleted the sylpheed, both the download and the file I created on harddrive. Then re-installed with a different password and all is working well now. That is on Racy5.2.2.8, won't run on Lucid 528.004. Will try again today on Lucid 528.004 Thanks Barry!

Sylpheed
Username: Jan
"@esmourguit, I think Barry forgot the ./ for executing from the current Directory. Try #./sylpheed --configdir `pwd`/sylpheed-config @BarryK Took a first look at it in wary verry nice thanks. Tryed in pup420 too and got it running, one extra dependary for Sylpheed is a more resent glibc i think v 2.7. And cryptofs needs to compiled on that system and update fuse. How do you get the lib files linked in the bin file ? The update of glibc is verry tricky , i took the files out akita(same kerneland pupderivate) and made a pet.

Re sylpheed
Username: BarryK
"No, what I did is correct. The PATH variable is modified, the Sylpheed executable is in bin/sylpheed in the package.

my emails back
Username: esmourguit
"I got my emails back. It seems I had a session of Sylpheed_portable that ran in the background. I noticed that, when i want to kill a process. After killing the session in ran background, I could enter my password which was accepted without problem so I could access Sylpheed. Thanks.

Tags: wary