Wednesday, March 8th, 2017| Author: Keychain is a password management system for macOS and iOS that was originally released with Mac OS 8.6 back in 1999 as a way of holding passwords, private keys, certificates and secure notes in encrypted files on the machine. Since then, Keychain has expanded to Apple’s mobile devices and synchronizes keychain files between devices through iCloud. This article explains the functions of Keychain in macOS Sierra as well as how to access and edit Keychain files. What Does Keychain Store? Keychains were originally developed in the early 1990s for use with an Apple email system called PowerTalk. The idea was that PowerTalk could communicate with many mail servers and online services, so it would use a keychain file to hold user authentication information within the application to automatically and securely log the user into the variety of services. With the creation and release of Mac OS X in the early 2000s, Keychain became part of the operating system and was used to hold much more information. Hotspot vpn free for mac. Hotspot Shield works on all version Windows XP, 7, 8.1,10 and Vista. ![]() Keychain can hold passwords for websites, web forms, FTP servers, SSH accounts, network shares, Wi-Fi networks, groupware apps, encrypted disk images and more. The passwords are dynamically linked to a particular user’s login password, so that when the user logs into a, all of the various accounts and passwords are made available to the operating system and select applications. Keychain also manages root certificates, keys, and secure notes. Where Can The Keychain Files Be Found On My Mac? Under macOS Sierra, the keychain files are stored in ~/Library/Keychains, /Library/Keychains/ and /Network/Library/Keychains/. These files are viewed and edited through an application called Keychain Access, found in the folder in the Applications folder. There’s also a command line equivalent to Keychain Access: /usr/bin/security. These keychain files store several data fields including a title, URL, notes and password. While the title, URL and some other fields are plaintext, the passwords and Secure Notes are encrypted with. Common keychains include login, iCloud, System and System Roots. The login keychain is unlocked upon login, while the other keychains can be unlocked by clicking on their icons in Keychain Access, clicking on the “lock” icon, and then entering the administrative password for the Mac. What Can I Use Keychain Access For? Since it holds a lot of important information, the Keychain Access app should be used sparingly. However, it’s a useful place to recover passwords that you may have forgotten, get details on secure certificates, and to keep secure notes that you don’t want anyone to see. (Keychain Access app) In the screenshot seen above, I’ve launched Keychain Access and I’m currently looking at the unlocked login keychain. It shows a number of application, network, internet and web form passwords; public and private keys used to encrypt/decrypt messages, and certificates. Let’s say that there’s a password that I’ve totally forgotten and haven’t stored somewhere else, like in a third-party password management application. For this example, I’ve misplaced my password for an old ftp server, so I scroll through the list until I find an entry for ftp.im4macs.com that is tagged as “Internet password”. Double-clicking the entry, the following window appears. ![]() (The Password Assistant in Keychain Access) Twenty characters is pretty long, and it has suggested “burro7:astrophysical” as a password. Clicking the Save Changes button in the Attributes window saves the newly-generated password. One other common use of Keychain Access is to create secure notes. Of course, you can also create password-protected notes in the Notes application on Mac and iOS, but people know to look in Notes for “notes”. Not many people would think of looking in the Keychain Access utility for secure notes.
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