Re: [platform-core-dev] User Settings proposed solution document

[Andre Weinand <weinand@xxxxxxx>]

Hi,
I've just glanced over the document and before I can give your "real" feedback,
I already have a question regarding storing and retrieving of passwords:

Coming from the Mac I've learned to love the concept of a "keychain", 
that is a central place in the  OS where passwords are securely 
stored and were applications can easily get access to (if the 
keychain is unlocked of course).

The benefits of using a keychain is that
- users have a single sign-on,
- a single policy exists for dealing with passwords,
- passwords are securely stored if keychain is locked,
- user can lookup and edit their passwords in a safe and secure place 
if they need to
  (for example I change my Novell password in my keychain whenever 
the system forces me to
  change it and after that I'm sure never to be asked again for the 
new password from any
  application)

So an API for a Keychain service would probably something like this:
getPasswordFromKeychain(...);
storePasswordInKeychain(...);

Do you think platform specific Keychain support for Eclipse would be feasible?
If yes, I can look into the Keychain manager of MacOS X in order to 
give you more detailled
information about how a minimal API could look like.



Thanks,
--andre



> The next document describing a proposed solution has been posted at the
> following URL:
>
> http://dev.eclipse.org/viewcvs/index.cgi/%7Echeckout%7E/platform-vcm-home/docs/online/team3.0/settings_solution.html
>
> If you have feedback, either annotate the bug report 
> (https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=36965) or post on the 
> platform-
> core-dev mailing list. It is planned that the implementation will begin in 3
> weeks so please provide feedback before than.