[sf-lug] Personal Security Management from Mozilla

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Bobbie Sellers (bliss-sf4ever at dslextreme.com):

> Has anyone heard of this PSM stuff from Mozilla or know where I can
> get it?

PSM (Personal Security Manager) is a set of high-level libraries that
applications can call to implement cryptographic operations, such as
signing, signature verification, setting up SSL/TLS connections, and
certificate management.  

PSM, in turn, makes calls to low-level cryptographic routines in NSS, 
Network Security Services (which is Mozilla's equivalent to OpenSSL's 
libssl library bundle).

Distros sometimes package PSM separately from Mozilla apps themselves.
The package name tends to be something like 'mozilla-psm' -- but there
might be naming variations from distro to distro.


However....

You didn't explain the reason for your question.  

Are you perhaps using a Mozilla program (e.g., Thunderbird or Firefox)
and said app threw up a dialogue saying something like this?

  Incorrect Response

  This document cannot be displayed unless you install the Personal 
  Security Manager (PSM). Download and install PSM and try again, or 
  contact your system administrator.  The site responded to the 
  network request in an unexpected way and the browser cannot continue.

If it's Firefox, try loading this page using Firefox and see what it
says: http://browserspy.dk/psm.php   The reason I suggest doing so is
that the underlying reason for the above-cited diagnostic message is
almost _never_ actually PSM being uninstalled.

The above-cited message can be caused by overly prohibitive firewall
settings, or by a badly configured or corruped app profile, or by weird
local changes that the user has made in about:config screens.

One worthwhile check is to try creating a different user profile in
(e.g.) Firefox, and see if the problem goes away when using that
profile.  If so, then your problem is a bad user profile, and not any
actual absence of PSM software.


Sometimes, users on LUG mailing lists ask what I call 'iceberg
questions', where 8/9 of the (vital) underlying facts remain
figuratively underwater and invisible.  The point is that it's very much
in your interest to not just ask 'Wheat is Mozilla PSM and where do I
get it?', but also say _why_ you are asking that question.  Otherwise,
you are likely to get absolutely correct but completely useless answers
- on account of (in essence) asking the wrong question.

And, please, when you see a diagnostic messsage and need help, please
cite the diagnostic message, verbatim.  Thanks.