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The Python keyring library provides an easy way to access the system keyring service from python. It can be used in any application that needs safe password storage.
These recommended keyring backends are supported:
Keychain <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keychain_%28software%29>_Secret Service <http://standards.freedesktop.org/secret-service/>_ supports many DE including
GNOME (requires secretstorage <https://pypi.python.org/pypi/secretstorage>_)KWallet <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KWallet>_
(requires dbus <https://pypi.python.org/pypi/dbus-python>_)Windows Credential Locker <https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/security/credential-locker>_Other keyring implementations are available through Third-Party Backends_.
On Linux, the KWallet backend relies on dbus-python_, which does not always install correctly when using pip (compilation is needed). For best results, install dbus-python as a system package.
.. _dbus-python: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/dbus/dbus-python
macOS keychain supports macOS 11 (Big Sur) and later requires Python 3.8.7
or later with the "universal2" binary. See
#525 <https://github.com/jaraco/keyring/issues/525>_ for details.
The basic usage of keyring is pretty simple: just call
keyring.set_password and keyring.get_password::
>>> import keyring
>>> keyring.set_password("system", "username", "password")
>>> keyring.get_password("system", "username")
'password'
Keyring supplies a keyring command which is installed with the
package. After installing keyring in most environments, the
command should be available for setting, getting, and deleting
passwords. For more usage information, invoke with no arguments
or with --help as so::
$ keyring --help
$ keyring set system username
Password for 'username' in 'system':
$ keyring get system username
password
The command-line functionality is also exposed as an executable package, suitable for invoking from Python like so::
$ python -m keyring --help
$ python -m keyring set system username
Password for 'username' in 'system':
$ python -m keyring get system username
password
If installed via a package manager (apt, pacman, nix, homebrew, etc), these shell completions may already have been distributed with the package (no action required).
Keyring provides tab completion if the completion extra is installed::
$ pip install 'keyring[completion]'
Then, generate shell completions, something like::
$ keyring --print-completion bash | sudo tee /usr/share/bash-completion/completions/keyring
$ keyring --print-completion zsh | sudo tee /usr/share/zsh/site-functions/_keyring
$ keyring --print-completion tcsh | sudo tee /etc/profile.d/keyring.csh
Note: the path of /usr/share is mainly for GNU/Linux. For other OSs,
consider:
After installing the shell completions, enable them following your shell's recommended instructions. e.g.:
bash-completion <https://github.com/scop/bash-completion>_,
and ensure . /usr/share/bash-completion/bash_completion in ~/.bashrc.autoload -Uz compinit && compinit appears in ~/.zshrc,
then grep -w keyring ~/.zcompdump to verify keyring appears, indicating
it was installed correctly.The python keyring lib contains implementations for several backends. The
library will attempt to
automatically choose the most suitable backend for the current
environment. Users may also specify the preferred keyring in a
config file or by calling the set_keyring() function.
The configuration is stored in a file named "keyringrc.cfg"
found in a platform-specific location. To determine
where the config file is stored, run keyring diagnose.
To specify a keyring backend, set the default-keyring option to the
full path of the class for that backend, such as
keyring.backends.macOS.Keyring.
If keyring-path is indicated, keyring will add that path to the Python module search path before loading the backend.
For example, this config might be used to load the
SimpleKeyring from the simplekeyring module in
the ./demo directory (not implemented)::
[backend]
default-keyring=simplekeyring.SimpleKeyring
keyring-path=demo
In addition to the backends provided by the core keyring package for the most common and secure use cases, there are additional keyring backend implementations available for other use cases. Simply install them to make them available:
keyrings.cryptfile <https://pypi.org/project/keyrings.cryptfile>_
keyrings.alt <https://pypi.org/project/keyrings.alt>_ - "alternate",
possibly-insecure backends, originally part of the core package, but
available for opt-in.gsheet-keyring <https://pypi.org/project/gsheet-keyring>_
ipython-secrets <https://pypi.org/project/ipython-secrets>_.bitwarden-keyring <https://pypi.org/project/bitwarden-keyring/>_
BitWarden <https://bitwarden.com/>_
password manager.onepassword-keyring <https://pypi.org/project/onepassword-keyring/>_
1Password <https://1password.com/>_ password manager.sagecipher <https://pypi.org/project/sagecipher>_ - an encryption
backend which uses the ssh agent protocol's signature operation to
derive the cipher key.keyrings.osx_keychain_keys <https://pypi.org/project/keyrings.osx-keychain-keys>_
keyring_pass.PasswordStoreBackend <https://github.com/nazarewk/keyring_pass>_
keyring_jeepney <https://pypi.org/project/keyring_jeepney>__ - a
pure Python backend using the secret service DBus API for desktop
Linux (requires keyring<24).The interface for the backend is defined by keyring.backend.KeyringBackend.
Every backend should derive from that base class and define a priority
attribute and three functions: get_password(), set_password(), and
delete_password(). The get_credential() function may be defined if
desired.
See the backend module for more detail on the interface of this class.
Keyring employs entry points to allow any third-party package to implement
backends without any modification to the keyring itself. Those interested in
creating new backends are encouraged to create new, third-party packages
in the keyrings namespace, in a manner modeled by the keyrings.alt package <https://github.com/jaraco/keyrings.alt>_. See the
setup.cfg file
in that project for hints on how to create the requisite entry points.
Backends that prove essential may be considered for inclusion in the core
library, although the ease of installing these third-party packages should
mean that extensions may be readily available.
To create an extension for Keyring, please submit a pull request to have your extension mentioned as an available extension.
Keyring additionally allows programmatic configuration of the
backend calling the api set_keyring(). The indicated backend
will subsequently be used to store and retrieve passwords.
To invoke set_keyring::
# define a new keyring class which extends the KeyringBackend
import keyring.backend
class TestKeyring(keyring.backend.KeyringBackend):
"""A test keyring which always outputs the same password
"""
priority = 1
def set_password(self, servicename, username, password):
pass
def get_password(self, servicename, username):
return "password from TestKeyring"
def delete_password(self, servicename, username):
pass
# set the keyring for keyring lib
keyring.set_keyring(TestKeyring())
# invoke the keyring lib
try:
keyring.set_password("demo-service", "tarek", "passexample")
print("password stored successfully")
except keyring.errors.PasswordSetError:
print("failed to store password")
print("password", keyring.get_password("demo-service", "tarek"))
In many cases, uninstalling keyring will never be necessary. Especially on Windows and macOS, the behavior of keyring is usually degenerate, meaning it will return empty values to the caller, allowing the caller to fall back to some other behavior.
In some cases, the default behavior of keyring is undesirable and it would be preferable to disable the keyring behavior altogether. There are several mechanisms to disable keyring:
Uninstall keyring. Most applications are tolerant to keyring not being installed. Uninstalling keyring should cause those applications to fall back to the behavior without keyring. This approach affects the Python environment where keyring would otherwise have been installed.
Configure the Null keyring in the environment. Set
PYTHON_KEYRING_BACKEND=keyring.backends.null.Keyring
in the environment, and the Null (degenerate) backend
will be used. This approach affects all uses of Keyring where
that variable is set.
Permanently configure the Null keyring for the user by running
keyring --disable or python -m keyring --disable.
This approach affects all uses of keyring for that user.
Keyring provides a mechanism to alter the keyring's behavior through
environment variables. Each backend implements a
KeyringBackend.set_properties_from_env, which
when invoked will find all environment variables beginning with
KEYRING_PROPERTY_{NAME} and will set a property for each
{NAME.lower()} on the keyring. This method is invoked during
initialization for the default/configured keyring.
This mechanism may be used to set some useful values on various keyrings, including:
The following is a complete transcript for installing keyring in a virtual environment on Ubuntu 16.04. No config file was used::
$ sudo apt install python3-venv libdbus-glib-1-dev $ cd /tmp $ pyvenv py3 $ source py3/bin/activate $ pip install -U pip $ pip install secretstorage dbus-python $ pip install keyring $ python
import keyring keyring.get_keyring() <keyring.backends.SecretService.Keyring object at 0x7f9b9c971ba8> keyring.set_password("system", "username", "password") keyring.get_password("system", "username") 'password'
It is possible to use the SecretService backend on Linux systems without X11 server available (only D-Bus is required). In this case:
Install the GNOME Keyring_ daemon.
Start a D-Bus session, e.g. run dbus-run-session -- sh and run
the following commands inside that shell.
Run gnome-keyring-daemon with --unlock option. The description of
that option says:
Read a password from stdin, and use it to unlock the login keyring
or create it if the login keyring does not exist.
When that command is started, enter a password into stdin and
press Ctrl+D (end of data). After that, the daemon will fork into
the background (use --foreground option to block).
Now you can use the SecretService backend of Keyring. Remember to run your application in the same D-Bus session as the daemon.
.. _GNOME Keyring: https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/GnomeKeyring
It is possible to use keyring with the SecretService backend in Docker containers as well.
All you need to do is install the necessary dependencies and add the --privileged flag
to avoid any Operation not permitted errors when attempting to unlock the system's keyring.
The following is a complete transcript for installing keyring on a Ubuntu 18:04 container::
docker run -it -d --privileged ubuntu:18.04
$ apt-get update $ apt install -y gnome-keyring python3-venv python3-dev $ python3 -m venv venv $ source venv/bin/activate # source a virtual environment to avoid polluting your system $ pip3 install --upgrade pip $ pip3 install keyring $ dbus-run-session -- sh # this will drop you into a new D-bus shell $ echo 'somecredstorepass' | gnome-keyring-daemon --unlock # unlock the system's keyring
$ python
import keyring keyring.get_keyring() <keyring.backends.SecretService.Keyring object at 0x7f9b9c971ba8> keyring.set_password("system", "username", "password") keyring.get_password("system", "username") 'password'
The keyring lib has a few functions:
get_keyring(): Return the currently-loaded keyring implementation.get_password(service, username): Returns the password stored in the
active keyring. If the password does not exist, it will return None.get_credential(service, username): Return a credential object stored
in the active keyring. This object contains at least username and
password attributes for the specified service, where the returned
username may be different from the argument.set_password(service, username, password): Store the password in the
keyring.delete_password(service, username): Delete the password stored in
keyring. If the password does not exist, it will raise an exception.In all cases, the parameters (service, username, password)
should be Unicode text.
The keyring lib raises the following exceptions:
keyring.errors.KeyringError: Base Error class for all exceptions in keyring lib.keyring.errors.InitError: Raised when the keyring cannot be initialized.keyring.errors.PasswordSetError: Raised when the password cannot be set in the keyring.keyring.errors.PasswordDeleteError: Raised when the password cannot be deleted in the keyring.Python keyring lib is an open community project and eagerly welcomes contributors.
Each built-in backend may have security considerations to understand
before using this library. Authors of tools or libraries utilizing
keyring are encouraged to consider these concerns.
As with any list of known security concerns, this list is not exhaustive. Additional issues can be added as needed.
macOS Keychain
keyring from that same Python executable without the operating
system prompting the user for a password. To cause any specific
secret to prompt for a password every time it is accessed, locate
the credential using the Keychain Access application, and in
the Access Control settings, remove Python from the list
of allowed applications.Freedesktop Secret Service
KDE4 & KDE5 KWallet
Windows Credential Locker
This project makes use of automated releases and continuous integration. The simple workflow is to tag a commit and push it to Github. If it passes tests in CI, it will be automatically deployed to PyPI.
Other things to consider when making a release:
Tests are continuously run in Github Actions.
To run the tests locally, install and invoke
tox <https://pypi.org/project/tox>_.
The project was based on Tarek Ziade's idea in this post. Kang Zhang
initially carried it out as a Google Summer of Code project, and Tarek
mentored Kang on this project.
.. _this post: http://tarekziade.wordpress.com/2009/03/27/pycon-hallway-session-1-a-keyring-library-for-python/ .. _Google Summer of Code: http://socghop.appspot.com/
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FAQs
Store and access your passwords safely.
We found that keyring demonstrated a healthy version release cadence and project activity because the last version was released less than a year ago. It has 1 open source maintainer collaborating on the project.
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