6

Like this question, I am looking for a password repository and that I can use to feed my programs and scripts with those passwords.

I found seahorse which seems to have what I need under the "Login" folder but I am not quite sure where the passwords are stored (for backup) and I don't know how to get the passwords in shell so I can pipe them into my scripts. I was under the impression that I can use gpg to access those passwords, but I don't quite know how.

Is it possible to access (and create) those passwords in terminal?

Improve this question

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
9

Seahorse is a GUI frontend to the Gnome keyring. The libsecret library comes with a command line utility called secret-tool which lets you access the Gnome keyring from the command line or a script.

Examples of secret-tool usage: for mutt, for mutt, in a shell script, in a CentOS Docker container, in a systemd unit file.

For backup purposes, the keyring file is in ~/.local/share/keyrings.

Improve this answer
5
  • Could you add an example on how to query passwords saved in seahorse with that tool? I cannot make it work ... See also Commented May 27, 2020 at 15:04
  • 1
    Okay, if you know an attribute and its full value you can query it, but it seems not possible to do a fuzzy/regex search for e.g. the label. Commented May 27, 2020 at 15:27
  • @pLumo secret-tool search …. But indeed I think you need to know at least one attribute. If you don't, I think the next most convenient tool is the Python API. I used it in the past to automatically change passwords. Beware that the API isn't stable, I don't know if that script still works today. Commented May 27, 2020 at 16:04
  • @Gilles'SO-stopbeingevil' you might be delighted to learn about lssecret: askubuntu.com/a/1155765/207933 Commented Dec 8, 2020 at 8:43
  • 1
    Would be nice to have an example to see how you could retrieve real stuff out of it. E.g. secret-tool lookup signon_realm https://lwn.net/ (note that the value must be identical, I wasted a bit of time when avoided / at the end) will retrieve password for this site. Commented Nov 3, 2021 at 14:56

You must log in to answer this question.

Start asking to get answers

Find the answer to your question by asking.

Ask question

Explore related questions

See similar questions with these tags.