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DisgruntledGoat
Asked: 2011-03-24 15:08:35 +0800 CST

Chrome asks for password to unlock keyring on startup

  • 772

In Google Chrome, when I go to a login page, a window pops up asking to "Enter password for keyring 'default' to unlock". In most cases, whether I click Cancel or enter my password, the login form gets auto filled anyway.

How do I get rid of the popup? I want it to auto login each time, not ask for my system password. The dialog box never appears for any other apps.

google-chrome

15 Answers

  1. From the manpage:

    --password-store=<basic|gnome|kwallet>
    Set the password store to use. The default is to automatically detect based on the desktop environment. basic selects the built in, unencrypted password store. gnome selects Gnome keyring. kwallet selects (KDE) KWallet. (Note that KWallet may not work reliably outside KDE.)

    The easiest way to fix that in the launcher is to copy the .desktop file to your home folder and edit it (google chrome users should copy the appropriate file):

    cp /usr/share/applications/chromium-browser.desktop ~/.local/share/applications

    Then edit the new file such that the Exec line reads like this:

    Exec=chromium-browser --password-store=basic %U

    If you have any other Chromium app installed, their .desktop files should also be in ~/.local/share/applications, edit them accordingly.

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  2. First make sure libpam-gnome-keyring is installed then log out and back in.

    When you open Chrome again it will ask for the password for the keyring but will give you an option to unlock the keyring every time you login. Make sure this is selected and enter your password to unlock the keyring.

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  3. Best Answer

    As described here you can set the keyring password to blank.

    Go to System/Preferences/Password and Encryption keys, right click the appropriate folder and click Change Password. Put in your old password and leave the new one blank.

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  4. You can remove this annoying message by

    1. Go to (Unity button)/Passwords and Keys
    2. On tab Passwords choose the proper key (I'd got only one, so you may need to find proper key). Right-click on it and Delete.
    3. Restart Chromium
    4. It'll ask for password --- do not type any and continue.
    5. Choose "Use unsafe storage"

    Ready for now!

    As to popups Chromium asks for password to encrypt your passwords for websites. With no password (as it said) someone will have access to your passwords having read access to some files.

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  5. Setting your keyring password to your login password should resolve the issue. If you completely remove the password, your keyring will be accessible without a password (i.e. by everybode who has read access).

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  6. Edit: In fact, you might as well get rid of the keyring popup and the "your computer is old" flag at the same time.

    sudo sed -i '/^Exec=/s/$/ --disable-infobars --password-store=basic %U/' /usr/share/applications/google-chrome.desktop

    Original answer

    I made this one-liner to make disabling the password pop-up simple for when I am setting up Ubuntu VMs. I just tested it on an Ubuntu 16.04 system which had Chrome installed (not Chromium).

    sudo sed -i '/^Exec=/s/$/ --password-store=basic %U/' /usr/share/applications/google-chrome.desktop

    This command adds --password-store=basic %U to the end of any line in /usr/share/applications/google-chrome.desktop that begins with Exec=.

    Credit to Capi Etheriel, who's answer I used to develop mine.

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  7. Ubuntu 12.10

    1. Goto Keyring and password
    2. then, View>By Keyring
    3. The window will change and will show a left pane. now select Login under Passwords in the left pane. Right click & select'change password'
    4. Enter the old password and when it prompts the new password just leave it blank.

    Hope this helps

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  8. First of all, I'm by no means an Ubuntu nor a security expert. I'm just an average user / programmer that wanted to install Chrome on my Ubuntu 16.04 VM running under Parallels.

    I installed Chrome, and was prompted with this annoying keyring password popup, and tried to put in my user's password to no avail.

    The solution I got to work quite accidently was to:

    1. Go to Passwords and Keys
    2. Under "Passwords" just delete the Login keyring underneath that
    3. Ubuntu now will prompt you to create the new password
    4. Now when you launch Chrome, it won't bother you with the keyring popup anymore! (Well, at least for mine, it didn't.)
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  9. Google Chrome uses Gnome 'login' keyring to securely store passwords. It is usually protected by a password that matches your login password. Gnome keyring can automatically unlock it when the user logs in. When you login normally, the system gives the password you just entered to gnome-keyring, which then unlocks the login keyring.

    So, why am I being asked to unlock a "keyring"?

    The 'login' keyring password does not match your login password

    When the user changes their password, the PAM module changes the password of the 'login' keyring to match.

    If root changes the password, or /etc/shadow is directly edited then due to the lack of the old password, the 'login' keyring cannot be updated.

    You have to update the 'login' keyring password manually.

    You did not enter your password when logging in

    When you have auto-login enabled or use another passwordless authentication method (for example 'fingerprint' device), you don't enter any password, and gnome-keyring cannot unlock the keyring automatically. So it asks you to unlock it.

    If you have enabled disk encryption, LUKS passphrase can be reused to decrypt GNOME keyring even with auto-login. This works in Fedora out of box, but propably requires additional configuration tweaks in Ubuntu and Arch to configure initramfs to use systemd (and, therefore, systemd-cryptsetup).

    Overwise, if you want to have auto-login and auto-unlock, you need to remove the keyring's password (set it to a blank one).

    Links:

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  10. As the problem came up on my computer just now, I think I've got a better solution.

    1. Go to Accessories -> Password

    2. Right click the 'login' folder

    3. Choose 'Change password'

    4. Choose 'unlock' and type in the new password.

    Thus, the pops-up never turn out again.

    • 1