Stop asking to unlock the keyring!

Tutorials & Guides
1

If you've installed a browser other than Firefox, you know that every time you start it up after a reboot, it asks you to unlock the keyring.

There are two fixes for that... one not recommended, one recommended.

The not-recommended method is to set a blank password for the keyring in the Passwords And Keys application (SeaHorse). Start it up, hit the back arrow at top-left, then at the top you'll see "Default keyring".

Now, you can right-click that line, but not if it's got the focus (it's a bug)... so move the focus to another line, then right-click the top line and select "Change password", and enter a blank password. That's the unsafe way of doing it.

The recommended method is to start the Files application (Nautilus), then find the .desktop file for the offending application.

Then in Terminal, type (and I'm doing this for Google Chrome, although I use SRWare Iron... I'll do Iron below):
sudo gedit /usr/bin/google-chrome.desktop

Find the line in the file that says:
Exec=/usr/bin/google-chrome-stable/

And add:
--password-store=basic

... to the end of that line. Now the application should only ask once, and nevermore. You can do that for any application.

For SRWare Iron:
sudo gedit /usr/share/applications/iron.desktop

Change the line to:
Exec=/usr/share/iron/chrome-wrapper --password-store=basic

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2

Interesting ..... I use Vivaldi Browser and don't recall that ever happening to me .... and lord knows I have had to reboot way to many times ..... :rofl:

But that is a great tip ....

3

If you turn off auto login, which you should do anyway, Chrome won't ask you to login after a start/restart because you just did. I set the power button to Suspend so I don't have to login in the morning. Turn off lock screen at Suspend in Privacy.

If you want to secure your computer, lock, log out or shut down.

4

The computer is physically secure, cheap, backed up and doesn't contain critical information, so I'm not so worried about someone walking up to it and using it, or stealing it. That is, I believe, the case for most people... they don't need more physical security (as TPM, Secure Boot and all the other stuff that's been developed lately attempts to improve), they need perimeter security... their internet connection is far more vulnerable than their keyboard. Their chance of getting cracked or getting malware is far higher than the chance of someone stealing or unauthorizedly using the computer locally. Hence, auto-login.

5

I never have to login except after a start/restart. I just hit the space-bar in the morning and computer comes out of Suspend.

If someone did steal it, they wouldn't be able to get into it. Google has all of my shopping and banking passwords.

This is interesting.

6

I take a different tack. My sensitive information (name, address, banking details, contacts, passwords, etc.) is kept on a USB stick that I carry in my pocket. It's on a KeyBak retractable key chain...

... with vinyl-coated braided stainless steel cable. I put a wire through the bottom part of the clip so it can't be easily removed from my belt.

I took it apart and unwound the cable a bit to get some slack so the memory stick sits in my pocket, not just hangs from my belt. There's a screw underneath the belt clip that lets you take it apart... but you've got to be careful, that coiled spring wants to go sproing!

I cut the plastic knob off the end of the cable, threaded it through the memory stick's hole, looped it, then used a cable crimp to secure it.

You have to slip the belt out of the metal loop, so to get it, someone would have to break the cable (not possible, that thing's strong), break the device, or take off my belt... and any of those they're crawling away bloodied.

Looks like this:

Big enough to transfer most files and to save all my personal information, connects to iPad, iPhone, Android and computer.

No sensitive information is on my computer or phone (my browser doesn't save any information, no files with sensitive information are kept on anything but that USB stick and several iterations kept on a backup drive). Both my phone and computer have USB-C ports, so it's a simple matter to plug it in when and where I need it, peruse the information, find what I want, then unplug it (actually, on my computer, I have a male to female USB-C extension cord so I don't have to remove it from my belt to plug it in and there's no tension on it from the spring).

I'm completely de-Google'd and de-Microsoft'd on computer and phone (Murena Teracube 2e Emerald).

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7

That reminds me... on my Windows computer, I had a shortcut icon to a PowerShell script which zipped the contents of the 250 MB partition on the USB stick which contained my sensitive information, then saved it to the backup drive with the file name being the date and time. All I had to do was plug the USB stick in to my computer, double-click the icon, and my sensitive information was archived.

Is there a similar way of doing that in Linux?

8

Certainly, You can create a bash script to accomplish your task, then create a desktop launcher with an icon for it.

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9

Looks like I'll have to learn a whole new programming language. I had the Windows version set up so it automatically searched the drives for that folder's name (so no matter what drive letter the USB stick landed on, the backup worked... a brute-force approach, to be sure)... I think for the Linux version, I'll reference the partition by its PARTUUID. That'd simplify things greatly.

You can see all your PARTUUID's with the sudo blkid command in Terminal.

Not sure how to parse those PARTUUIDs out of the string, though... they vary in length.

Ah, figured it out:
sudo blkid | grep {PUT YOUR PARTUUID HERE} | sed -e 's/^(.):.$/\1/'

Returns:
/dev/sda1
/dev/sdc2
etc.

Then we want to do a mount with the device path and node (for instance: /dev/sda1) as input to get the mount path, yes? That gives us the path and directory that zip will understand.

sudo mount | grep /dev/sdb1 | grep -o -P '(?<=on ).*?(?= type)'

Returns:
/media/owner/WinBackUp

Then we can get zip to work on that path, directory and subdirectories.

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