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Re: Where are WiFi passwords (WPA keys) stored?

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On 12/06/2016 09:04 AM, Robert Latest wrote:
> Not in /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf, despite suggestions in
> every bit of documentation that I got my hands on. In fact, that file
> doesn't even exist on my jessie system. Nevertheless, when I
> configured the WiFi network using some GUI tool in the XFCE desktop,
> it worked.

Disclaimer: I'm not a user of XFCE, so if that does something
really weird, this may not apply.

However, most graphical tools interface with NetworkManager, and
that stores its configuration in /etc/NetworkManager.

You'll likely find your password stored in
/etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/$SSID
(file only readable/writable as root; also please don't modify it
while NetworkManager is running, it will overwrite it without
warning; modifying it when NetworkManager is stopped is fine
though)

where you replace $SSID with the SSID of your WiFi.

On some desktops (e.g. GNOME) the Password can be stored in the
personal user's keyring/wallet/password manager instead, but
then you need to be logged in for NetworkManager to have access
to the password - which is not true in your case because you
mentioned:

> Even after a reboot, with no desktop running, I could ssh
> into the system via WiFi.

So that means that NetworkManager has the password stored
directly.

Note that when using NetworkManager, it configures its own
instance of wpa_supplicant, so you should never touch a
configuration file for wpa_supplicant yourself in this kind of
setup.

(You could of course stop using NetworkManager and configure
wpa_supplicant manually, but I really wouldn't recommend that;
I don't think wpa_supplicant is designed in a way that makes
direct end-user usage easy - there's a reason why NetworkManager
exists instead of desktop environments communicating directly
with wpa_supplicant.)

> BTW, I did find a wpa_supplicant.conf file in some deep subdir of
> /etc/dbus-1/...

That's just the DBus policy, that doesn't configure how
wpa_supplicant reacts, but only how the DBus daemon handles
the access policy for wpa_supplicant. (DBus is a communication
bus used on Linux and other systems; most desktop envirnoments,
including XFCE, use it internally for some things.) Unless you
know what you're doing, I wouldn't touch that, otherwise you
could end up stopping NetworkManager from communicating with
wpa_supplicant and then your WiFi could stop working altogether.

Regards,
Christian

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Thread

Where are WiFi passwords (WPA keys) stored? Robert Latest <boblatest@gmail.com> - 2016-12-06 09:10 +0100
  Re: Where are WiFi passwords (WPA keys) stored? Ben Finney <bignose@debian.org> - 2016-12-06 11:10 +0100
  Re: Where are WiFi passwords (WPA keys) stored? Yvan Masson <yvan.masson@openmailbox.org> - 2016-12-06 11:20 +0100
    Re: Where are WiFi passwords (WPA keys) stored? Celejar <celejar@gmail.com> - 2016-12-06 20:00 +0100
      Re: Where are WiFi passwords (WPA keys) stored? Brian <ad44@cityscape.co.uk> - 2016-12-06 20:20 +0100
      Re: Where are WiFi passwords (WPA keys) stored? Teemu Likonen <tlikonen@iki.fi> - 2016-12-06 20:30 +0100
      Re: Where are WiFi passwords (WPA keys) stored? Liam O'Toole <liam.p.otoole@gmail.com> - 2016-12-06 20:50 +0100
  Re: Where are WiFi passwords (WPA keys) stored? Christian Seiler <christian@iwakd.de> - 2016-12-06 11:20 +0100
    Re: Where are WiFi passwords (WPA keys) stored? Robert Latest <boblatest@gmail.com> - 2016-12-06 17:10 +0100
    Re: Where are WiFi passwords (WPA keys) stored? Brian <ad44@cityscape.co.uk> - 2016-12-06 21:30 +0100
      Re: Where are WiFi passwords (WPA keys) stored? Christian Seiler <christian@iwakd.de> - 2016-12-06 23:20 +0100
        Re: Where are WiFi passwords (WPA keys) stored? Brian <ad44@cityscape.co.uk> - 2016-12-07 18:30 +0100
  Re: Where are WiFi passwords (WPA keys) stored? Mart van de Wege <mvdwege@gmail.com> - 2016-12-06 12:50 +0100
  Re: Where are WiFi passwords (WPA keys) stored? Celejar <celejar@gmail.com> - 2016-12-06 20:00 +0100

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