Keyring password (Re: Installation report for UNR 20090324 on Acer Aspire One)

[Matt Zimmerman]

On Tue, Mar 24, 2009 at 12:27:16PM +0100, Martin Pitt wrote:
> Matt Zimmerman [2009-03-24 11:07 +0000]:
> > I installed with auto-login enabled, and when I connected to a WPA network,
> > I was prompted for a password to create the default keyring.
> > 
> > Is this because I chose auto-login?
> 
> Yes, it is. NM (as well as Evolution, seahorse, and other bits) use
> gnome-keyring to store passwords. gnome-keyring is encrypted with a
> keyring password.
> 
> We use pam-keyring to keep the PAM and gnome-keyring passwords
> synchronized, but obviously with auto-login, PAM does not know your
> password and thus gnome-keyring has to ask.
> 
> >  Is there any way to avoid this awkward prompt?
> 
> Tricky. I'm not very fond of disabling the keyring password entirely
> in such cases and thus store passwords unencrypted; that might be
> acceptable for wifi passwords, but much less so for SSH ones.

How about prompting the user for their login password, so that at least we
hide the fact that they are separate?

What makes this confusing is that the user doesn't really understand what
this password will be used for, and why they need an additional password.

-- 
 - mdz