I recently tossed Ubuntu 8.10 on my Mac Mini at home to use it as a home theater PC (with Boxee). When I connected to my wireless network via NetworkManager, I entered my WPA2 passphrase, and then I was prompted to enter a password for gnome-keyring. I went back to the couch, SSH'ed in, and continued configuring it remotely. When it rebooted, it never came back online.
Once I switched the TV back over to the Mini, I saw that gnome-keyring had popped up and it was asking for my password. I entered it, and the Mini joined the wireless network. Each time I rebooted, I had to go through this procedure (which is annoying to do with a HTPC that is across the room). I found a pretty fancy solution, but it looked a little complicated for my setup.
Here's how I did it in a simpler way in Ubuntu 8.10:
- Click Applications > Accessories > Passwords and Encryption Keys
- Click Edit > Preferences
- Click your keyring name (usually default)
- Click Change Unlock Password
- Enter your current password in the top box, but leave the bottom two boxes blank
- Click OK
- Click Use unsafe storage when you are prompted
- Click Close
If you reboot your machine, it should not ask for a password for your keyring any longer. This allowed my system to log into my wireless network automatically.
WHOA THERE: Since the only password being stored on the device is my WPA2 password, I'm not concerned about the security of the keyring. If you're doing this on a laptop or desktop that other people use, I would highly recommend not following these steps. All of your passwords and keys will be stored unencrypted.
You know that Boxee also runs on OS X, right? Works very nice with the Apple Remote. It's even much more stable than the Linux version in my experience. But of course Boxee is still in alpha.
I had the same problem with Ubuntu on my laptop but solved it without using "unsafe storage". If you set the Unlock password for gnome keyring to be the same as your login password, I've found that it doesn't prompt for a password, just automatically unlocks they keyring when logging in. Of course I'm not sure if this would work with an automatically logged in account...
Interesting. Helps with the annoyances.
Would be happy to have your ubuntu-tagged posts on ubuntuweblogs.org. Let me know if you're interested.
Thanks for the advice, it worked perfectly. I'd be trawling through websites and trying out a myriad of "solutions" for my Fedora 10 system but none of them had worked. Thanks a million. I owe you a big kiss.