252245 - No docs for Import button of People/Servers/Authorities tabs of Certificate Manager (Manage Certificates)

Status: NEW

(SeaMonkey :: Help Documentation, defect)

Description

[Paul Rubin]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040616
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040616

I'm trying to import a certificate into mozilla mail and am unable to figure out
how.  I press the "import" button and click on the cert in the file dialog, but
the cert doesn't get imported and there's no error message.  The help file
doesn't describe the "import" button at all, so I don't know if I'm doing
something wrong.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1.
2.
3.



Expected Results:  
Docs should describe what kind of cert file the import button should expect to
find, i.e. what formats are permissible (PEM, DER, X12) and whether the complete
cert chain up to a CA root is required.  Also, there should be an explanatory
error message (sw prob, maybe I should open another bug) if an import fails.

There's also no way to export a certificate from the "my certificates" pane. 
You can back up your own certificate, but that dumps the cert chain AND your
private key into a p12 file that you then have to dismantle with openssl.  This
software could really benefit from some usability improvements.  It has the
potential of being much less hassle to use than PGP.

Comment 1

[Jens Hatlak (:InvisibleSmiley)]

According to
<http://mxr.mozilla.org/comm-central/source/mozilla/security/manager/pki/resources/content/certManager.js#589>
"Certificate files" currently resolves to "*.crt; *.cert; *.cer; *.pem; *.der" (see also lines 554 and 610).

"Other people's certificates" is called "People" nowadays and the problem also applies to the Servers and Authorities tabs and happens on cross-platform, thus changing subject and platform.