Re: can emacs use the mac os x keychain?

[Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com>]

On Mon, 26 Jul 2010 08:47:27 -0500 Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com> wrote: 

TZ> 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

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

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

TZ> 2) read the password back securely

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

Adrian, is there any chance that the NS Emacs port can provide those
keychain functions through an ELisp layer?  It would make it easier and
more secure to get user passwords, plus users wouldn't need to install
the helper program.

I don't know if there are any linking issues with that, so cc-ing
emacs-devel as well.

Thanks
Ted