341. Upgrading/installing BankID on 64 bit linux

Note: the post below is aimed at installing BankID on Debian (should be ok for ubuntu/mint too). For Arch Linux, see here (item 16)

There are a few ways to get around the rotten behaviour of bankid. This is one of them:

NOTE: to install nspluginwrapper you need to enable the stable/squeeze repos by e.g. adding

deb http://ftp.au.debian.org/debian/ squeeze main contrib non-free

to your /etc/apt/sources.list.

That's normally reasonably safe since apt by default pulls in the newest package and I haven't had any issues. Just be careful though.

You can also install nspluginwrapper by compiling it as shown here: http://verahill.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/366-nspluginwrapper-on-debian.html


Note that there's a FOSS alternative in Fribid (http://verahill.blogspot.se/2012/02/debian-testing-wheezy-64-fribid-as.html) which seems to be working perfectly -- and if you can use it, use it. The main limitation is that in practice you'll have to collect your certificate/ID with it, since newer versions of BankID saves the ID in an incompatible format. Like many foreigners, I don't have the opportunity to visit Sweden for the sole sake of picking up a new ID, so I'm stuck with BankID. But you may not be.

0. Things to install:

sudo apt-get install iceweasel nspluginwrapper ia32-libs

1. Download BankID and uninstall any previous installations

cd ~/Downloads
mkdir bankid
cd bankid
wget https://install.bankid.com/Download?defaultFileId=Linux -O bankid.tar.gz
tar xvf bankid.tar.gz
cd BISP-4.19.1.11663/
sudo sh install.4.19.1.11663.sh u

2. If you're upgrading, make sure to remove any previous libplugins.so

sudo updatedb && locate libplugins.so

/home/me/Downloads/bankid/BISP-4.19.1.11663/libplugins.so
/usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libplugins.so
/usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/npwrapper.libplugins.so
/usr/lib/nspluginwrapper/plugins/npwrapper.libplugins.so

sudo nspluginwrapper -r /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/npwrapper.libplugins.so
sudo rm /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libplugins.so
sudo rm /usr/lib/nspluginwrapper/plugins/npwrapper.libplugins.so

3. Install the new version

sudo sh install.4.19.1.11663.sh i

Installing BankID Security Application
ln: failed to create symbolic link `/usr/lib/firefox-addons/plugins': No such file or directory
WARNING: Failed installing plugin for Firefox 3. Manually add symlink to libplugins.so in your Firefox 3 plugin directory if this browser is to be used.
Installation complete.
sudo nspluginwrapper --install /usr/local/lib/personal/libplugins.so

4. Test your installation
Don't bother with test.bankid.com since the idiots won't let you test anything that identifies itself as 64 bit (more about that later). Instead

• go to http://www.skatteverket.se
• click on personbevis
• log in. This should work

5. Testing against test.bankid.com
Everything is in working order but for some idiotic reason bankid.com won't even allow you to test you fancy new 64 bit installation -- and it all boils down the useragent string in iceweasel/firefox identifying itself as running on a 64 bit system (paradoxically, a real 32 bit browser running in a chroot won't work either since the kernel is 64 bit -- in schroot you can use personality=linux32 to get around it, but good luck dealing with the massive memory leaks).

Anyway,

• open your iceweasel browser
• type in about:config in the address bar
• promise that you'll be careful
• right-click on the page, select New, String
• In the first box, type general.useragent.override
• In the second box paste Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux i686; rv:10.0.12) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/10.0.12 Iceweasel/10.0.12

You can now go to https://test.bankid.com. I find this a bit humiliating though, and you can use bankid everywhere but bankid.com without having to set the useragent to identify your system as being i686.

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If you're having issues, the first thing to check is about:plugins in firefox: