490458 - Imprecise error message when loading a new PKCS11 module fails

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Core :: Security: PSM, defect)

Description

[te.mlists]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10_5_6; de-de) AppleWebKit/525.27.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.2.1 Safari/525.27.1
Build Identifier: 2.0.0.16

Steps to reproduce





Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Choose Preferences > Encryption > 
Security Devices > Load…
2. Enter the path to your PKCS#11 module, don't use browse, hit OK



Actual Results:  
Error message "Loading of Module XXXX failed"

Expected Results:  
When loading fails, a helpful user message
e.g. 
- opening the library failed (dyld error XXXX)
- resolving PKCS11 entry points failed (bogous library)
- initialisation failed with error XXXX (i.e there is no attached slot when C_Initialize is called)




I've seen many "non-admin-type" users that do not expect the loading of the library failing when - according to the PKCS spec - C_Initialize fails due to an missing slots.

The current behavior is inconsistend:
- you can not load a module that fails to init correctly
- however, once init'ed, it will remain in the security module list regardless if the init call  fails or not. 

Sidenote: Also applies to FireFox

Comment 1

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

As this seems to apply to firefox as well, therefore moving to the core component where most of these bugs go.

Comment 2

[Kai Engert [:KaiE:]]

Mass change owner of unconfirmed "Core:Security UI/PSM/SMime" bugs to nobody.
Search for kaie-20100607-unconfirmed-nobody

Comment 3

[Dana Keeler (she/her) [:keeler]]

This would require considerable effort for something that only a fraction of users do very rarely.