Re: can emacs use the mac os x keychain?

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Sat, 24 Jul 2010 20:36:18 -0700 (PDT) vm user <emacs_user@hotmail.com> 
wrote: 

vu> On Jul 1, 12:20 pm, Ted Zlatanov <t...@lifelogs.com> wrote:

>> Unless there's a helper program or support inside Emacs (the latter is
>> unlikely IMO) it's not possible to query this API from within Emacs.

vu> I am quite an ignorant in these things, but does the following help?
vu> http://log.scifihifi.com/post/55837387/simple-iphone-keychain-code

That seems useful.  I think auth-source needs a general protocol to talk
to helper applications when Emacs itself doesn't support it.  This can
be tricky because of the security implications of passing passwords.
EPG does it well but I don't know the specifics.  So there's really
three parts:

1) define a helper protocol to pass auth request parameters in the
environment somehow

2) read the password back securely

3) write an implementation that works with the Mac OS X keychain

Contributions welcome on all 3 items.  I don't know if I'll have time
soon to work on this, but feedback would certainly help.

On Sun, 25 Jul 2010 21:09:30 +0100 Uday S Reddy <uDOTsDOTreddy@cs.bham.ac.uk> 
wrote: 

USR> Another question that I always wondered about.  Does auth-source allow
USR> for multiple logins on the same server/protocol combination?

Not currently.  The first one found is picked IIRC.  I think it would
make the UI significantly more complex to allow multiples and perhaps
confuse users.  The advanced users that need that can typically use
aliases for the server name.  Do you see a need for it?

Ted