Why isn't Gnome Keyring a fully fledged password manager?

[Mr. Picklesworth]

If I recall correctly, the GNOME Keyring folks are indeed aware that its interfaces are imperfect, and there was some talk of making it easier and more satisfying to work with. (I think some of that work may have hit 2.22, in fact).
It is definitely a good idea to use the keyring manager since it automatically deals with encryption, makes it easy to run backups (as with gconf), and can work between different applications.

The trouble now is we have to wait for other projects to support the thing. Your best bet is filing bugs in the respective projects' bug trackers, or maybe even look at pushing patches their way. Pidgin, for example, is currently storing passwords in plain text. Using the keyring for each platform would really be a good thing.


On another topic, the only idea I see here so far is to "make it better". What's with all the babbling?!

[sicofante]

Sorry, I forgot the [sarcasm] tags

Has the idea never occured to you that the reason gnome-keyring doesn't have the features you think it should have might just be because the Gnome team doesn't have a developer available and/or interested for coding it?

Dear HymnToLife: I'm well aware of your sarcasm, your mentality and your lack of manners. My replies were only meant to highlight all of this and you have done as expected. There's little to no interest in take any conversation further on this "code it yourself" aggressive attitude held by still too many Linux developers. Thankfully, this is not these forums' style, and that's the reason why "the rest of us" feel comfortable here. I've seen this tone of yours in many other threads and I beg you please try and stop it. It doesn't make any good to you or to these forums and of course never helps the ones asking questions.

If I recall correctly, the GNOME Keyring folks are indeed aware that its interfaces are imperfect, and there was some talk of making it easier and more satisfying to work with. (I think some of that work may have hit 2.22, in fact).

That's great news.

The trouble now is we have to wait for other projects to support the thing.

Which is in direct relation to how easy and obvious it is, how much Gnome enforces that policy, etc. Think of OSX's Keychain.

On another topic, the only idea I see here so far is to "make it better". What's with all the babbling?!

Actually, it has been suggested that the Keyring is promoted to a higher status inside the Gnome desktop by making it easy to use with applications running inside that Desktop. It needs to be flexible enough to store different kinds of sensitive information, not just "username-password" pairs. Also it should have a well exposed interface so developing plugins for those apps not yet supporting it was very easy (thus relieving the developers of those apps of making that decision themselves). Of course that means "make it better" but my main point is "make it more present in the Gnome desktop" or only Gnome itself will be using it, which is exactly what happens right now.

[Polygon]

your blowing that comment way out of porportion dude, his comment wasn't bad at all and he is right, you are free to submit patches to gnome keyring if you want to see improvements 'now'

and you cant compare this to osx, since apple created all the programs like mail, ichat and all that, so they all use the apple keyring cause they were DEVELOPED by apple, the only gnome projects that use passwords are like evolution and nm, and i think they both already use it....

[Mr. Picklesworth]

Does anyone know if FreeDesktop has a keyring specification? The keyring system being desktop-specific doesn't make much sense anyway, and that could be why it's so blatantly ignored. A proper standard across the ecosystem would definitely help things

[iceback]

'Cause it just took out 1.4GB of memory.

[sicofante]

and you cant compare this to osx, since apple created all the programs like mail, ichat and all that, so they all use the apple keyring cause they were DEVELOPED by apple, the only gnome projects that use passwords are like evolution and nm, and i think they both already use it....

Errr, wrong and wrong. Many third party apps use OSX's keychain because it's easy to use and has been properly promoted by Apple. Evolution does not use the Keyring. That alone is probably an indication that Keyring is the poor child in Gnome, and I'm suggesting it shouldn't be.

[Polygon]

going off what someone above ^ just said, the keyring in mac os x is standarized, there is only one for the entire os...with linux there is a bunch of combinations of software that a program can run on, kde, xfce, gnome, any of the lightweight *boxes, icewm, etc etc...if there is no standard then it becomes troublesome to support one keyring manager and not the other.

[bruce89]

I heard there were plans to have WebKit use gnome-keyring. Shame Ephy 2.24 will still be Gecko.

[sicofante]

going off what someone above ^ just said, the keyring in mac os x is standarized, there is only one for the entire os...with linux there is a bunch of combinations of software that a program can run on, kde, xfce, gnome, any of the lightweight *boxes, icewm, etc etc...if there is no standard then it becomes troublesome to support one keyring manager and not the other.

That's why this thread is about the Gnome keyring. It happens to be the desktop of choice for Ubuntu. That makes it no different from OSX in this regard.

[frup]

sicofante, if you desire this feature so much could I suggest that maybe you draft out your idea very very carefully and think of all the possibilities, use case scenarios and possible problems in very good detail and submit a bug report somewhere.

Along with your bug report you should probably post a bounty, you could pledge a certain amount for every other person who also pledges and that might spark a programmers interest.

Instead of being aggressive and hostile to other people pointing out mere facts, why not be proactive and takes steps to making your idea happen.