Configuring Gmail CSE
Follow the Google documentation to enable S/MIME for client-side encryption in your organization and create a service account to interact with the Gmail API.
Configure cosmian client¶
The cosmian command line interface (CLI) simplifies the setup of S/MIME keys and certificates for users.
After completing the setup, update your Cosmian CLI with the necessary information for the service account you created for the Gmail API.
Import certificates chain to Cosmian KMS¶
According to Google’s requirements and configuration guidelines, upload the certificate chain to Cosmian KMS. This certificate chain will be used to generate user certificates.
cosmian kms certificates import -f pkcs12 issuer_ca_certificate.p12 -p PASSWORD issuer_ca_certificate
If multiple administrators will be generating key-pairs for users, ensure that each administrator has the appropriate access rights to the imported certificate chain elements: - the issuer certificate ID (given when importing the Certificate Authority) - the issuer private key ID - the issuer public key ID
In order to get the issuer private ID and issuer public key ID, run the following command:
cosmian kms -- get-attributes -i issuer_ca_certificate
You’ll use the ID of the issuer’s private key (imported from the certificate chain) to later sign users’ public keys and create their certificates.
Create user key-pair¶
Gmail uses key-pairs (an RSA private key wrapped with its associated certificate) and identities (the ID of an uploaded key-pair, associated with a user) to sign and encrypt emails using S/MIME. These objects are uploaded to Google via the Gmail API.
You can create a key-pair (RSA private key and user certificate chain) and upload it to the Gmail API using the following command:
cosmian kms google key-pairs create --cse-key-id CSE_KEY_ID --subject-name "C=FR, ST=IdF, L=Paris, O=YOUR_ORGANIZATION, OU=DEPARTMENT, CN=user@your_organization.com, emailAddress=user@your_organization.com" -i ISSUER_PRIVATE_KEY_ID user@your_organization.com
If you already have an existing RSA key-pair for the user, you can specify it in the command.
Once created, the ID of the key-pair will be displayed.
Note: It may take up to 24 hours for Google to propagate the Client-Side Encryption (CSE) activation for a user within the Gmail API, allowing you to upload the S/MIME elements.
Insert user identity¶
After creating the key-pair, you must associate it with the user’s identity. To do so, run the following command:
You can manage key-pairs (get, list, enable, disable, obliterate) and identities (get, list, delete, patch) using the other available commands in the cosmian commands documentation.
Note: It may take a few hours for Google to propagate the uploaded elements, after which users can begin using S/MIME for secure email exchanges.
User experience¶
To send a client-side encrypted email within your organization, a user needs to turn on the additional encryption option in the message window (lock -> Turn on additional encryption). Only users with CSE activated can encrypt and decrypt encrypted emails.
To send a client-side encrypted email outside your organization, a user needs to send a message to the recipient with their digital signature, without CSE turned on. The recipient then needs to reply to the message with their digital signature. Then the sender can choose to add CSE to email sent to the external recipient.
Encrypted emails will be automatically decrypted from Gmail interface.
Learn more about CSE user experience