Keyring Application

This is an in-depth document about the keyring-application, version 4 and above. It’s meant to be read after the keyring introduction document. Although primarily intended for programmers, its content should be accessible to non-programmers who may want to experiment using the application.

The keyring application serves several purposes:

• It provides a command-line interface for storing and retrieving secrets from keyring-compatible credential stores.
• It provides a code template for developers wishing to build applications that use the keyring facilities for managing secrets.
• It provides an inventory of keyring-compatible credential stores with examples of how to use each of them in a working application.

The keyring application is a command-line interface. It is typically invoked with arguments that specify which credential store should be used. It then connects to that credential store and reads lines from the standard input, parsing and executing each line as a keyring command.

Users of keyring-based client applications may want to use the keyring application to understand what data is being stored securely by their client application, or to remove that data completely once the client application is no longer available.

Developers who are developing keyring clients should read the source code of the keyring application. It provides examples of how you connect to a credential store at application startup, how you use both the basic and advanced features of the client API, and how you disconnect from a credential store at termination.

Developers who are developing keyring-compatible credential stores should prepare a PR for the keyring application that adds their store to those available in the application. This will ensure that potential clients will both know about their store and have a working example of how to connect to it properly.