Topal: GPG/GnuPG and Alpine/Pine integration

Topal is a `glue' program that links GnuPG and Pine/Alpine. It offers facilities to encrypt, decrypt, sign and verify emails. This is the feature list from the README file:

In-place decryption/verification, dealing with multiple blocks embedded in text.
Caching of output to reduce need for passphrase (at expense of storing decrypts and verification output).
Receiving of MIME RFC2015/3156 multipart/signed and multipart/encrypted messages. Top-level multipart items need some modification: see the README section ‘fixing multipart emails’. These features are available to any program that uses .mailcap files.
Sending of MIME RFC2015/3156 multipart/signed and multipart/encrypted messages. (Needs a patch to Pine/Alpine.)
Sending and receiving of the old application/pgp content-type (sending requires the same patch as the previous item).
Basic support for verifying S/MIME multipart/signed messages.
Offers user the opportunity to check output before sending it.
Remote sending and decryption for when reading email on a distant computer via ssh with secret keys on the local computer.
Rich configuration options.
Shortcuts for selecting keys, as well as general key selection routines when sending email.
Few arbitrary limits.

See the README file for all the stuff like licensing, TO DO, recent changes, etc.

The current release of Topal is 72. Send email to pjb@lothlann.freeserve.co.uk if you would like to be notified of new Topal releases by email.

The most recent changes were:

27/6/2009; release 68: Minor bug fix with configuration handling of omit-inline-disposition-header.
Added new configuration option save-on-send.
A range of major and minor changes to the sending interface.
Added the sd configuration option that allows keys or emails to be associated with particularly sending options.
When secret keys aren't available, still try to add a suitable key for self for encryption.
MIME viewer setting has been replaced by two: one for decrypt and one for verify.
Bad lines in the configuration file now result in a warning, not an exception.
Internal modifications to configuration handling.
21/7/2009; release 69: No longer calling an external app for line-end conversions.
Added a note re: Alpine's S/MIME message about certificates.
Show the list of recipients just before sending (from the to/cc/bcc lists; not lcc, as Alpine doesn't pass those to in the _RECIPIENTS_ token). The idea is to allow the user to spot the “oh no, I didn't intend to email that person” problem.
22/9/2009; release 70: Added use-agent configuration option. This has three values: (1) never use an agent, (2) only use it for decryption, (3) always use it. Don't put GPG's --[no-]use-agent options in any other configuration options or it might be confusing.
Adding attachments when using a non-MIME mode forces a change to a suitable mode (where possible).
Presentation changes for recipient list check.
Fixed a minor typo in a user message.
25/2/2010; release 71: Added more MICALGs from RFC4880.
Handle missing Content-Type headers in multipart messages.
Reorganise menus: hopefully, they're easier to read now. Add some colourisation (this can be disabled by setting ansi-terminal to off). Assorted tidying.
Warn if sending defaults to encryption, but some keys are missing.
Add -pd - pipe-display mode. Takes stdin and treats it as a MIME email for display/verification.
Release code is now taken from the README.html file rather than a separate release file.
Slight clean-up of this README.
25/2/2010; release 72: Fix menus for non-Pine sending. (‘Go’ wasn't working!)
Trap attempts to encrypt when no keys are in the key list.
Minor change to distrib text and Makefile.
Distrib target in Makefile now uses GPG agent.

Files available are:

The README file.
GNU Public Licence version 3.
The source code package (188 kB, release 72) and a detached signature.
You will need the source package, even if you don't want to compile Topal yourself. The documentation is included in the tarball.

The topal binary for Linux x86 (240 kB, not stripped, gzip'd, release 72) and a detached signature. The output of ldd for the topal binary (on the build machine) is

	linux-gate.so.1 =>  (0x4001c000)
	libncurses.so.5 => /lib/libncurses.so.5 (0x4003b000)
	libreadline.so.4 => /lib/libreadline.so.4 (0x4006d000)
	libgnarl-4.3.so.1 => /usr/lib/libgnarl-4.3.so.1 (0x40099000)
	libgnat-4.3.so.1 => /usr/lib/libgnat-4.3.so.1 (0x400d1000)
	libpthread.so.0 => /lib/i686/cmov/libpthread.so.0 (0x403a9000)
	libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x403c2000)
	libc.so.6 => /lib/i686/cmov/libc.so.6 (0x403d0000)
	libdl.so.2 => /lib/i686/cmov/libdl.so.2 (0x4052b000)
	libm.so.6 => /lib/i686/cmov/libm.so.6 (0x4052f000)
	/lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x40000000)

The topal binary for Linux x86 (statically linked against the GNAT library, 364 kB, stripped, gzip'd, release 72) and a detached signature. You'll need to rename this as `topal'. The output of ldd for this binary (on the build machine) is

	linux-gate.so.1 =>  (0x4001c000)
	libncurses.so.5 => /lib/libncurses.so.5 (0x4003b000)
	libreadline.so.4 => /lib/libreadline.so.4 (0x4006d000)
	libpthread.so.0 => /lib/i686/cmov/libpthread.so.0 (0x40099000)
	libc.so.6 => /lib/i686/cmov/libc.so.6 (0x400b2000)
	libdl.so.2 => /lib/i686/cmov/libdl.so.2 (0x4020d000)
	/lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x40000000)

Some features (sending of any content-type except text/plain) require a patch to Pine. (See the README.)

Last generated: Thu Feb 25 20:29:40 GMT 2010