GPG2 hangs the system if I activate another window

[Raffaele Ricciardi]

 > Date: Tue, 07 Feb 2012 10:11:33 +0000
 > From: gnupg at lists.grepular.com
 > To: gnupg-users at gnupg.org
 > Subject: Re: GPG2 hangs the system if I activate another window
 > Message-ID: <4F30F8D5.8070107 at lists.grepular.com>
 > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
 >
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 > On 07/02/12 01:09, Raffaele Ricciardi wrote:
 >
 > > I've downloaded and compiled GPG2 on Debian Linux (Gnome).
 > >
 > > When GPG2 opens a popup to ask for a password, I can't switch to
 > > another window without locking up the desktop.  Neither the mouse
 > > nor any key works anymore, not even the power button, and I have to
 > > keep it pressed for 6 seconds to force power-off.
 > >
 > > Is there any way around this? I need to switch to another window
 > > because I keep my passwords in a password database application I
 > > may need to open, and on a laptop with a touchpad, a click can be
 > > fired off inadvertently anyway.
 > I think this is by design. See the following option in the man page
 > for gpg-agent and make sure you understand the security implications
 > before using it:
 >
 > - --no-grab: Tell the pinentry not to grab the keyboard and mouse.  This
 > option should in general not be used to avoid X-sniffing attacks.

Thank you for the tip about looking into the help for gpg-agent (I was 
looking
into that for gpg2).

It seems GPG2 on my system is running Seahorse, a Gnome front end for GnuPG:

GPG_AGENT_INFO=/tmp/seahorse-PDdgFx/S.gpg-agent:2402:1

That's the reason this other user, who is running XFCE instead of Gnome, 
is not
experiencing my same issue:

 > Date: Tue, 07 Feb 2012 15:31:58 +0100
 > From: Peter Lebbing <peter at digitalbrains.com>
 > To: gnupg-users at gnupg.org
 > Subject: Re: GPG2 hangs the system if I activate another window
 > Message-ID: <4F3135DE.8020007 at digitalbrains.com>
 > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
 >
 > On 07/02/12 11:11, gnupg at lists.grepular.com wrote:
 > >> When GPG2 opens a popup to ask for a password, I can't switch to
 > >> another window without locking up the desktop.  Neither the mouse
 > >> nor any key works anymore, not even the power button, and I have to
 > >> keep it pressed for 6 seconds to force power-off.
 > > I think this is by design.
 > Locking up seems a bit harsh . Here, on XFCE with Debian testing, my 
desktop
 > definitely does not lock up. I can press some buttons with the mouse, 
but I
 > can't type any text in any other window than the password input 
dialog. But at
 > no point do I lose control, and once I dismiss the password dialog, I can
 > continue using my computer. This would be the "design" I expected .
 >
 > That said, if you want to pass the password from a password database
 > application, you probably indeed need --no-grab, and that might solve the
 > locking problem as a byproduct.

I'll investigate the issue further.  Since in my case GPG2 is being 
invoked by another
application (Emacs), this is not straightforward.

Thank you guys for your support.