Net ID on Ubuntu 12.10

I don’t know if it’s because of my desktop environment (Ubuntu 12.10, Gnome Shell 3.6) is so darn special or because Firefox 17 disabled a certain feature. But anyway, when I tried installing Net ID from SecMaker, better known as Telia e-legitimation, it would just fail. But I was able to find a workaround.

My symptoms: I followed the instructions from Telia / SecMaker and it semed OK. To finish the actual installation part, you’re supposed to browse to /etc/iid/pkcs11.html to let Firefox install Net ID as a local security device. However, that part simply doesn’t work. I got the message:

 

Installation status for Net iD pkcs#11 module is unknown, use buttons below to install or uninstall the module.

But the buttons Install / Uninstall didn’t actually do anything.

  1. The problem: The whole point of surfing to /etc/iid/pksc11.html is so that a javascript can install Net ID as security device. Turns out that Firefox 17 have disabled access to the internal Firefox object that can manipulate the list of security devices unless the code executes inside a proper Firefox extension. In this case, the code executes inside a normal webpage so it simply won’t work.

The solution: It turns out that there’s another method to install Net ID as a security device and that  is to do it manually. This is how.

1. Open Edit -> Preferences -> Advanced.

2. Select the Encryption tab

3. Click Security Devices. You should see something like the below (except that you won’t see “Net ID” in the tree view on the left hand side.Screenshot from 2012-12-18 10:08:57

4. Click the Load button on the right hand side. Fill in the details. You want to name the module “Net ID” and give the path to the .so file to /usr/lib/libiid11p.so

Screenshot from 2012-12-18 10:14:44

5. Click OK. You should now see Net ID in the tree view on the left hand side and that’s our goal here, so, hooray!!!

Now, you have added the Net ID software to your computer and made it available in Firefox, so you installation can continue as described in the instructions from Teliea (or whatever ID provider you have).

Good luck!

7 comments

  1. Your solution does not work for me. should I also use ”/usr/lib/libiid11p.so” in the path? I actually used this as module path but in the left side tree unlike your picture I found only empty slots under Net ID. So I unloaded it, and now I can not load it anymore for the second time. It says: Unable to add module. Can you please suggest what is the problem?

    1. Sounds like you’ve did manage to install the Net ID module into Firefox. The six “Empty Slots” in the tree under the “Net ID” are supposed to be there. They are just place holders to begin with. Once you manage to download the certificate from your ID-provider (bank?), the first slot will be renamed. In my case the first empty slot was renamed into “Telia eleg-7301″. There are six of them because you can have up to 6 ID’s installed. On my machine we have two of them now, one for me and one for my wife.

      The path to libiid11p.so could vary, but it’s unlikely. The script I ran to start the installation (/path/to/download/iidsetup/install) have the path /usr/lib/” hard coded. If it’s an “all user installation” it’s “/usr/lib/libiid11p.so”. If you install the software as your own user, it could also end up at “/home/you/.iid/lib/libiid11p.se”. So go look in both those two locations.

      Maybe I should have made it more clear, but when the steps above are fixed, you can surf to your certificate provider (most likely your bank) so that they can add the actual certificate

      I wish you the best of luck. If you’re still not able to solve this, please be a bit more specific when describing what happened (or did not happened) when you tried to add libiid11p.so the second time.

  2. Thank you very much for your quick reply. Now I did it !!!. Your answer really helped. Actually my ”.so” file name was different than yours. It is: libiidp11.so.5.6.2.62. But still I don’t understand how it was loaded in the first time with wrong file name! Anyway, I was badly searching for a way to install Net iD in my ubuntu. I am really grateful to you 🙂

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