Re: gnome-keyring Seahorse and clear text passwords: a proposal for a pragmatic solution

[Neil Broadley <scaine scaine net>]

2009/11/3 Stef Walter <stef-list memberwebs com>

Neil Broadley wrote:
> Can I add that I don't think the solution needs to be "lock seahorse and
> require a password to use it".  I just think that when Seahorse is
> accessed, passwords are by default not shown in clear text.  Since this
> is possibly not fully useful, a button to "Reveal passwords" would then
> prompt via gksudo/policykit/whatever.

So what you're suggesting is to have the keyrings live in a daemon
running as root, essentially another security context, which then uses
policykit or gksudo for permisions? An interesting idea. Certainly
non-trivial, and needs a lot more thought, but interesting 

Well, I'm not even sure I'm suggesting that, although I can see the merit.  No, really, I'm comparing Seahorse to the "change password" function in "about me".  In that app, you enter your current password to prove you are who you say you are (the logged in user), then you can change your password.  All I'm suggesting is a similar process in Seahorse when someone presses "reveal password".

Basically, the "reveal password" tick would become a button triggering a password prompt.  If correct, password is revealed.  If not, it denies access, in the same way that policy kit does if you choose "deny".

The problem at the moment is that policy kit prompts you "deny", "allow once" or "allow always", but since the default/login keyring is already unlocked, you don't get a password prompt.
 

At least the concept of having the keyrings live in another security
context is interesting. I haven't thought about this much, so I don't
know whether it would cause more problems than it would solve. But this
bears thinking about in the long term.

I think something like this already happens at some level, because I noticed recently that in Network Manager (which uses gnome-keyring and whose passwords are therefore visible in Seahorse) if you tick "Available to all users" for a given WEP/WPA key, it vanishes from the login keyring in my user profile.  Perhaps it uses a root keyring?  Apologies, I'm not fully familiar with the underlying processes.  The last couple of weeks have been a steep learning curve.

(p.s. I'm replying to all to post this message from gmail - is that the correct procedure here?)