I'm using 64 bit Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. Recently, I've been experiencing occasional pop-ups saying "Enter password to unlock your keyring. The login keyring did not get unlocked when you logged into your computer." After I enter my password, things seem normal, although I didn't notice anything abnormal prior to the box popping up.

Can anyone tell me what this is telling me? I presume I need to "fix" something, but I have no idea where to look.

Thanks.

Are you using auto login?

Thanks for the reply ...

Yes, I am using auto login.

But - I have been using auto login for a long time (standalone machine at home) and hadn't experienced this behavior until very recently.

You should have.

The keyring is where your permission information, for the elevation of privelegs, are stored. You can see that there really should be a password protecting this.

Auto login is very nice if you admire the security of monolithic operating systems such as Windows.

GNU/Linux is a Unix like system and intended to be a multi user system. You can have a linux system with hundreds of users, each with a separate account that is secure from all the other users.

Auto login does not fit this model at all. While it can be implimented it will be fragile at the best. The more this is worked on to make it less fragile the less secure the system will become.

The easy way to get rid of this problem is to learn basic security procedures that even smart Windows users use and log in with a password.

The common acceptance of auto login gives rise to people that are willing to use compromised GNU/Linux distros that, for instance will give you a root prompt with no need for a password if you simply boot to recovery mode.

Hi Widget:

Well, thanks much for the Lecture, Mom, but it would be more helpful if you could provide some explanation of why the behavior only began recently occuring so that I can (shudder) FIX IT.

I'm pretty well aware of the security issues, having first used Unix (AT&T's very own) in the early days, as well as lots of variants along the way (including Microsoft's Xenix), and before graphical user interfaces became de riguer. And I wrote my first (albeit rather simple) "program" in the late 1960s on a Univac. And, just incidentally, I also used Microsoft Windows in our lab BEFORE version 3.0 came out to run some test equipment control software whose name escapes me at the moment.

But, I'm old and cranky. And I'm somewhat lazy. And, although I still enjoy playing with computers, I actually use my machine (my own private machine) as a "tool" rather than a hobby. And I have pretty decent physical security (a lot more reliable IMHO than any password scheme I've seen implemented to date) and only connect to the internet when I need to (like asking about some behavioral quirk I haven't run into before).

In spite of your patronizing blather, by the way, you seem to be blissfully unaware that Unix was originally designed as a SINGLE USER operating system (hence the "uni" in the name if you have any etymological curiosity), mainly because of the annoying security overhead in Multics (the "x" in Unix was a play on the "ics" in Multics) that was related to the fact that it supported multiple users. Unix's conversion to a multi-user operating system, ironic as that was, only came later. So, my solution to the particular security issue you refer to - a perfectly adequate one for my needs - is simply to do away with the other users.

By the way, your comment "Auto login is very nice if you admire the security of monolithic operating systems such as Windows." is technically known as a non-sequitur.

So, again, thanks for the advice. Hopefully, someone else who actually knows something can actually answer my question or provide some suggestions.

20 members found this post helpful.

I have no idea why you weren't prompted for a keyring login before, you should have been. The keyring is used to store passwords for other packages and sites, and uses a master password to unlock them. The default behavior is to unlock the keyring with the login password, but since you have bypassed entering that, you must either enter a password for every package that needs one, or enter a master password for the keyring. You may not have supplied a master keyring password previously, so you should have been required to enter a password for various packages - email, or anything else that requires root privileges or a password to run. But then, it is Ubuntu, so almost anything is possible. Once you start getting these popups, there are only two solutions that I know of - log in with a password, or enter the keyring password afterwards.

2 members found this post helpful.

Thanks for the reply - I appreciate the comments.

CVAlkan i was in the same boat with that crappy Keying bull++++,on any Ubuntu flavour,but it only happens to me with google chrome? Fire fox doesn't do that,i tried to get rid of it but couldn't.
So i do not use Google Chrome and that solves it.

1 members found this post helpful.

Interesting. I've never installed or used Google Chrome, so I guess I need to look for something that Chrome uses and that something else I installed also uses.

Doesn't solve the issue, but helps narrow it down somewhat so thanks much.

1 members found this post helpful.

For years I've seen the patronising responses from Linux geeky "Senior Members" who totally miss the point.
Well done CVAlkan for your response - it made my day :-)

Now I just have to solve the same problem that I came here for...

6 members found this post helpful.

And for anyone looking for a solution, this worked for me - http://ubuntuhandbook.org/index.php/...-ubuntu-13-04/

2 members found this post helpful.

"Auto login is very nice if you admire the security of monolithic operating systems such as Windows."

That is a nice touch. A very motivating non sequitor for any person ambivalent about switching to Linux. I like it.

I created an account just so I could vote CVAlkan's burn as helpful. The pretentiousness of some Linux folks out there makes my blood boil.

But I also wanted to chime in and say I believe the referenced issue lies with the personal keychain's Chrome passwords. My solution was to delete the personal keychain. When I was prompted to create a new one, I simply didn't provide a password. I was warned about file security, blah, blah, but I've got other security measures in place (much like OP), so I went forward with no password in the personal keychain. No issues since then.

Happy Linuxing!

3 members found this post helpful.

I think this'll work:

- Launch gnome-keyring
- Go to Passwords | Right-click Login | Change Password (Login is just one... maybe other applications are also prompting you, so you can do this for them as well)
- Enter your old password
- Enter a blank password as the new one

1 members found this post helpful.

It's likely an auto-starting app that uses Chrome or Chromium as a base (such as Hangouts or Slack). Chrome stores your credentials in the keyring, and every time you crank it up you have to unlock.

This was the source of a huge memory leak on my own machine - I stopped using Hangouts explicitly because of that (tho the keyring pop up was also annoying, it wasn't the deal breaker that the leak was)

3 members found this post helpful.