gnupg for a multiuser system

[Mark H. Wood]

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On Thu, 6 Nov 2003, rhkelly wrote:
> John Clizbe wrote:
>
> >>I read a lot of manuals how to install GNU on a windows 2000
>  >>computer, because I wanted to know, if it's possible to install
>  >>GnuPG on a single computer with multible users.
> ...
> > It /can/ be done, but it won't be very pretty. Just about all
>  > the defaults and instructions for installing GnuPG on a
>  > Windows box are more in tune with the way things were
>  > done on Win3.1 and Win95. Most of the work will
> > be in setting up each user.
> >
> > There's no Windows Installer work done, so you will have to
>  > find some way to create the necessary registry settings in
>  > HKCU; keyring directory for each user; and have a base set of
>  > of files copied in with default keyrings
> > and gpg.conf.
>
> Which shows, once again, why it is *wrong* for application
> developers to follow Microsoft's directive to store application
> environmental data in the system registry. It is somewhat
> understandable when it's done by programmers who have seen
> nothing but Windows and heard no voice but Microsoft's, but
> its outright depressing when one sees something like that
> done by the likes of GPG developers...!

There's nothing wrong with it.  It's just another namespace.  How would
you do this differently?  (Technically, yes, per-user data don't belong in
the SYSTEM hive; they belong in each user's hive.  Is that what you're
saying?)

To do a proper job, the entire gpg.conf ought to move into
HKCU\Software\Gnu\GPG, and the underlying storage mechanism (Registry on
Win32, ~/.gnupg on Unix, etc.) be abstracted.

> > Following the Windows logo recommendations for location and
>  > such will probably make it a bit easier to find ways to do most
>  > of this and ease maintainence later...
> > ...  and use %USERPROFILE%\Application Data\GnuPG for the
> > location of HomeDir - put gpg.conf and default keyring files there.
>
> As long as there is an alternative for the user that wants
> his or her data on - for instance - a removable medium...

That would seem to be something we don't have now.  All I see on that
Windoze box over there is HomeDir, which contains the keyrings and
trustdb.

- -- 
Mark H. Wood, Lead System Programmer   mwood at IUPUI.Edu
MS Windows *is* user-friendly, but only for certain values of "user".
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