What does seahorse do?

[Mario Vukelic]

On Thu, 2008-11-27 at 10:41 +0000, Chris G wrote:
> Can anyone here help?  Does seahorse do the same as ssh-agent?  Does
> it do it 'automagically' when you log in to X using your login password?
> I've found the seahorse home page http://projects.gnome.org/seahorse/index.html
> and that tells me just about nothing.  The best there is (on the
> 'about' page) is:-
> 
> With seahorse you can...
> 
>     * Create and manage PGP keys
>     * Create and manage SSH keys
>     * Publish and retrive keys from key servers
>     * Cache your passphrase so you don't have to keep typing it
>     * Backup your keys and keyring
>     * more...

There's also [1], but that says much the same. I don't know, however,
what more it could do for you. You asked what seahorse does, and both
pages tell you.

[1] http://live.gnome.org/Seahorse

> It's rather a fundamental security thing to 'just happen' behind your
> back!

So? There are many fundamental security things that "just happen" behind
your back. I mean, shadow passwords don't exactly advertise their
actions all over the place, either. And who in their right mind would
not want such things to happen automagically?

It's not so much Ubuntu doing something "behind your back" (you make it
sound it as if it was done maliciously) as it is you not being on top of
how your OS works ;)
It was mentioned in passing in the release notes for Ubuntu 8.04 (but
yeah, it would not have hurt to say a bit more. Also, it would be great
if the Gnome link pointed to the correct Gnome version):
http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/releasenotes/804overview