Keychain: System

I have had several security issues with my most recent Mac. One is that I can't seem to access my 'System' keychain. I never set a password for this specific keychain yet my Mac asks me for one. Can anyone help?

I have Airport security items in my System keychain as well, so I'm thinking this might be normal. I've also got this password issue, and I opened a thread on it last Friday: "System Keychain Access". You may want to camp out on that thread as well.
--Gregory

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Keychain system cannot be found

There are several threads on this, and on my 2009 iMac running Mavericks I ran into many of the same obstacles to the standard remedies. I had a big crash when trying to update to Yosemite a few weeks ago (so I'm back on Mavericks), with lots of permissions problems in the highly-complicated resuscitation phase. I have done a CMD-R reboot, and repaired permissions (on the password-reset utility), checked various folders including my $HOME folder with CMD-I, looked in System Preferences -> Sharing to see that I had everything set properly, and used Disk Utility also to Repair Permissions. (Maybe not in that order.)
And then, days later, for reasons unclear I began to get the "keychain system cannot be found" message. It occurred when waking the computer from sleep, finding the wi-fi disconnected and not being able to store the password. I ran Keychain First Aid. No help. I checked the Info (CMD-I) screens for my Library keychain folder and subfolders, and all looked normal.
(Disk Utility still reports lots and by "lots" I mean thousands of unnecessary ACL permissions, which it says it repairs and then they're still there.)
It's highly inconvenient as I "SSH" in to my base computer over the InterWeb, which is strangely impossible when the base is offline.
I'm not sure about adding or making new keychains - the old one apparently will be preserved although some advisors say make a manual back-up first anyway. And apparently one can import "keys" from the old keychain to make things less onerous. But I couldn't quite deduce how far that rabbit-hold might lead, so still crashed around a bit, and found ...
... that my System keychain was locked. All of the Preferences selections were "unlocked", and the other keychains (login, local, and System Roots) were unlocked.
I asked my wife what she was doing, creeping around in my keychain when I wasn't looking, but I have to say that I believed her when she professed not to know what a keychain was.
So how it got locked I don't know. I did what I often advise but equally often forget: right-clicked the System keychain. There's an option of unlock it (or to lock it if it's already unlocked).
That still didn't work, although the non-self-logging-on WiFi was my only practical problem.
So, I deleted that one key, the one for my WiFi user password.
Somewhere in there of course I rebooted (and rebooted), whether necessary or not.
And that finally worked. It's only been a few hours, but I can log off, I can reboot, the computer can sleep, and I can turn the WiFi on and off manually - and it auto-logs back in.
I wonder if I'm reporting this too early. So far, so good.
Summary: I did all the usual stuff, outlined above, suggested in multiple other threads (e.g. 10.9 Mavericks and keychain issues), except that I didn't make any new keychains, but then:
in Keychain, right-clicked the System keychain and unlocked it;
deleted just my Wifi user-password key in the System keychain.
Hey presto! YMMV!
Hope this helps somebody.
Charles

As Eric Root suggested, I'm replying to myself. Several days have passed and my repairs are holding. Here's a partial and edited "re-post":
I found that my System keychain was locked. All of the Preferences selections were "unlocked", and the other keychains (login, local, and System Roots) were unlocked.
How it got locked I don't know. I did what I often advise but equally often forget: right-clicked the System keychain. There's an option of unlock it (or to lock it if it's already unlocked).
That still didn't work, although the non-self-logging-on WiFi was my only practical problem, so, I deleted that one key, the one for my WiFi user password.
Somewhere in there of course I rebooted (and rebooted), whether necessary or not.
And that finally worked. It's only been a few days as of this writing, but I can log off, I can reboot, the computer can sleep, and I can turn the WiFi on and off manually - and it auto-logs back in.
Summary: I did all the usual stuff, outlined above, suggested in multiple other threads (e.g. 10.9 Mavericks and keychain issues), except that I didn't make any new keychains, but then:
in Keychain, right-clicked the System keychain and unlocked it;
deleted just my Wifi user-password key in the System keychain.
Charles

"Dashboard Advisory" in Keychains/System Keychain?

I've just noticed something in Keychains, System Keychain, called +Dashboard Advisory+, issued by +Dashboard Advisory CA+. It reads, +Expires: Tuesday, April 29,2036 2:09 PM America/New York.+
*Below that in red there is: +This certificate was signed by an unknown authority+*
(I also have X509Anchors in Keychains. But there, in green, unlike the Dashboard Advisory, it is, more reassuringly, written, +this certificate is valid+)
Can anyone tell me, please, what this is and if it is legitimate?
(A short Google search seems to turn up something about a Daemon phoning home to Apple re. Dashboard Widgets (installed after the 10.4.7 Update), but I'm not sure this is what I have, and I certainly don't understand why, then, it was "signed by an unknown authority."
Message was edited by: WZZZ

... and now it's all ok?? ... or are you getting what I am getting ?
-i.e. .... loads of different applications complaining that =this or that certificate is invalid etc - even if you change the trust settings !!!! $&^&( aaarghhhhh)
I am cross enough to join you at the wall down there for a spot of head butting that wall !!
I think you are just about to suffer the issue I am - guess what ... some of those apple certificates have just gone out of date today/yesterday .........
can we download some new ones from...... now lets see....... ummmmm .... hey APPLE !! can you send us some in date ones in an 'update' (good name for it really)
still cross, in london, tired now too as 12:48 in morning/night whatever, big long day ahead tomorrow to
I have also posted about this in another thread - BDAqua has been trying to help me (thanks) but I am trawling around these other threads in the vain hope that one of them will contain the secret 'fix'
hows the head WZZZ ??!!
Best regards
Andy

Show password in keychain.system

I would like to know the password that I set ages ago for my wireless DSL router. It is the only thing in my system keychain. I am able to unlock the system keychain using the password for my admin user, but when I check "Show Password" the new dialog box which appears and requests a password will not accept any password for any user. I have even tried enabling and logging in under root, but it still doesn't work.
I have been able to use the "show password" function with my login keychain without any problem - it's just this one.
I went ahead and deleted the password, which since I didn't know it, meant I had to set the wireless network up again. I was hoping that when the new password was saved the "show password" block would work in case I needed it again in the future. Of course, it didn't work, and I still can not show the password.
Anyone else having these problems? Anyone able to offer advice?
Thanks for the help!

Your admin password doesn't match the Keychain Access password. As for part 2, your login.keychain should reside in ~/Library/Keychains/ and the machine's System.keychain should reside in /Library/Keychains/. I have no idea why your using more than one and why they're not in the proper places. You might want to delete the small one, rename the large one, and delete whatever is currently in ~/Library/Keychains/.

Keychain: 'System' keychain? 'System Roots'? What?

I've considered using Keychain Access for the first real time, as I'm tired of using the same unsafe password everywhere. At work we had security issue and I started collecting and changing each password, and logging them on a sheet securely stored in a safe. It's not that important anyway.
However here I'm on a Mac and I wanted to give security a try...
First I fired up Keychain Access and found 3 keychains in the list, being: login, System and System Roots. I understand that login is tied with my login password and will unlock each time I log in.
However, I have no clue about the 2 other keychains, and wonder if they even need to be here. As I'm planning a nice clean start, I was wondered if I could just erase those? I thought that if something needed my password, I'd simply feed it, since I'm aware of all the existing password on this mac; it has only be my own.
So... what is the un-signed or un-trusted certificates I've found under the 'System' keychain?
And the whole lot of certificates (only certificates this time) I've found under 'System Roots'?
Can I clear these? I remember having created no certificates at all, and the names or text in these certificates does not mean anything to me, nor sound a bell.
Thank you if you can be of any help
Alex

I've been looking at the Kechain access help. So far I'm a bit lost between terms and nouns, but it's not so bad.
Thanks for the info.
Any more details about these?

Keychain, System Prefs and Safari problems...

Hi there.
I've had my powerbookG4 1.33 for over a year now and it is great, but recently I have had a couple of simple problems.
My hard drive failed and was replaced by Apple with the warrenty service.
When I got it back, the user and admin was set to Apple and I tried to change it to myself but was really unsuccessfull.
Today when I went to use my computer, Safari and I-tunes had reset all of their settings and deleted my bookmarks.
Safari starts up with some error message saying the Keychain could not but stored, reset it? So I've done that and tried to repair keychains with no success.
I did the software updates and then all my files from the desktop vanished!!!!! And I am still having Keychain error messages and it deletes bookmarks I made. Should I just format/reload it myself? It seems apple did a terrible job.
ALSO.... Microsoft word came with my software package but says the trial is expired. I know it is on the CD's but can't seem to install it either..
help!
Jason Richard

Look in the /Users folder to see if your original Home folder ("Apple"?) is there, renamed. If it is, follow the steps in this Kbase article to retrieve your settings and data:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107854
I don't know of any software packages from Apple that would include Word, although new Macs often come with "Office 2004 For Mac Test Drive" installed. For information on the "demo has expired" alert, see:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302930

(Wi-Fi) Keychain System: Interesting Info on the "System" Pane..?

I have used keychain for years, but I never bothered to learn enough what it can help me with some parts. I am mainly looking into about part line about the "Where:" section for it which I have attached which I have found through google to help my question-
The best I could explain it with this image I found on google what it looks like though:
http://installingcats.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/keychain_access.jpg
It seems interesting about that "Where:" line, since I can't figure what it could help me. Can it help me at least show me where I connected my laptop to? I googled and everywhere that I cant seem to find it being too vague for a search anywhere
Secondly, I do understand the Modified line, is there a way showing how many times or any other places to get more info about that section? That seems interesting too.
Of course, I am always interested learning more when I run into parts that I haven't used before.
Thanks if anyone could help me about this. It is strange finding interesting wirelesses.

Hey,,s10114751 !!
After reading your entire stuff from the post I still have a question in my mind the can please elaborate what's the basic role of Arduino as if I'm a bit confused to answer your question and it would be great if you could tell me its role so that I could guide you perfectly.
Info

System keychain

I think i have a problem with the system keychain. When i try to save the password for the vpn connections, nothing happens (the password field become empty); it's impossible to do time capsule backup and post this error: "Error -25308 when creating the entry of the system keychain for the username ...". I think that system keychain non longer accessible by my user.
May someone help me?

First of all check, in Terminal, /Library/Keychains/System.keychain permissions which are
ls -la /Library/Keychains/System.keychain
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel - 36768 21 Nov 09:47 System.keychain
also issue this command
security show-keychain-info /Library/Keychains/System.keychain
should return
Keychain "/Library/Keychains/System.keychain" lock-on-sleep timeout=300s
These are the default values.

Loading a Machine Certificate into System Keychain

Does anyone know how to load a machine certificate (with a private key) into the System keychain?
I can load the certificate if it doesn't have a private key, but then Internet Connect won't recognize it as a valid machine certificate. It seem Internet Connect only looks in the shared System Keychain for certificate for the L2TP over IPSec certificate authenticated protocol.
I tried manually loading a Keychain that had a machine certificate in it already, but I ran into the old problem of the System Keychain requesting a password that nobody knows and when racoon tries to get the certificate from the System keychain it can't and fails.
mtennes@asher:>>sudo /usr/sbin/systemkeychain -v -t
Testing system unlock of /Library/Keychains/System.keychain
(If you are prompted for a passphrase, cancel)
System unlock is NOT working
If I create a fresh System keychain that can be unlocked automatically I can't load a valid machine certificate with a private key into the System keychain, I can however load that same certificate into any keychain I create or event the X509Anchors keychain, but of coarse Internet Connect doesn't look there.
mtennes@asher:>>sudo rm -rf System.keychain
mtennes@asher:>>sudo /usr/sbin/systemkeychain -v -C
/Library/Keychains/System.keychain installed as system keychain
mtennes@asher:>>sudo /usr/sbin/systemkeychain -v -t
Testing system unlock of /Library/Keychains/System.keychain
(If you are prompted for a passphrase, cancel)
System unlock is working
Any ideas?
PowerMac G5 2.7GHz DP Mac OS X (10.4.6) thawte Web Of Trust Notary

How about using
sudo systemkeychain -v -k /Library/Keychains/System.keychain -C "password"
where “password” is the new keychain password that you want to give to the System keychain?
That way you should be able to unlock the System.keychain to add whatever you need to add to it, because now you know the password.
Ronald

Unauthorized Keychain Access - System

When I opened up the keychain access from Utilities I found something very strange. Under "System" I found an access titled " F* Bush", kind="airport network access", keychain="system". It took place on the same day I switched and installed a new wireless modem router (model DLINK DSL-G624T). On that day I also synchronized with my MacbookPro, which had unauthorized access over 1 year ago from this same "user" due to no encryption on the wireless network (didn't work with MacbookPro and former Netopia router which is why I changed).
When I try to "show password" and enter the admin ID and password I get a message "kcproxy wants to use your confidential information stored in "f* bush" in your keychain. Do you want to allow access to this item?"
Should I be concerned about this? I currently have WAP security in place to block unauthorized access. Not sure if it is too late.

Thanks for the link -- the thread was most helpful. Since this all came about as a result of changing my Active Directory password on the corporate network, the info in that thread tends to confirm my suspicion that the system entry is overriding the entry that I changed.
I'm not sure that I agree with Jim R.'s commentary, though:
Nobody owns the system keychain really, not even root. The System keychain is a shared keychain the system uses the store items available for all user accounts on the computer. If it were owned by root and had the root password, then other accounts would need the root password in order to use it. The fact that it doesn't allow you to view stored passwords is a security measure. This way, users can use system-wide resources that have been set up without actually knowing the passwords, not even other admins.
The reason for having root is to be able to alter system resources that others can access. There are many other resources in the system that can be accessed by everyone but altered only by root. Now we can argue about whether others in the System Admin group can modify a resource, but root should definitely be able to access and alter every resource on the system; every other O/S I've used has at least one such account. Without it, you give up the ability to control your own system.
Thanks,
--Gregory

Can't Delete an Entry in System Keychain, Can't Delete an Entry in System Keychain

I'm trying to build my app with xcode and it's throwing a code sign error saying:
iPhone Distribution: jetheat: ambiguous (matches "iPhone Distribution: jetheat" in /Library/Keychains/System.keychain and "iPhone Distribution: jetheat" in /Users/Jet/Library/Keychains/login.keychain
Command /usr/bin/codesign failed with exit code 1
So it says that I have two distribution certificates in my keychain, which is true as i can see that in my keychain.
But when I try to delete the certificate within the system keychain, it just wont allow me to do it.
It says:An error occurred while deleting “iPhone Distribution: jetheat.”The specified item could not be found in the keychain.
Any ideas what I can do?
Thanks,
JH

Thanks for that. All I had to do was restart keychain and then eventually it deleted.
Silly me!

My System Keychain is empty OS 10.6.8

I have been unable to access Time Capsule. I did a factory reset and got part way through the set up, but my admin password didn't work and I couldn't complete. Lately I been having a problem accessing the Keychain System passwords, though I know what they're set at. Somehow they've reverted to previous versions and I can't change them--they act like they're changing but when I check back they're as they were. Lately I have been getting access restricted notices and I can't access them at all. There is a weird System entry put there by my dealer when I went in for repairs. I couldn't access it or delete it, didn't have priviledges.
To get around this I planned a HD erase and install. I figured I could get rid of the strange entry and be able to access the items in System Keychain. I first backed up on a new WD Passport: Time Capsule on a large partition, and my iMac HD with its folders on a 125 GB partition. I erased and reinstalled OS 10.6 and all its updates. The Passport wouldn't mount and I could find no remedy for this. (WD support is in a strange state.) Time Capsule still wasn't showing. So I tried to recontact TC by the factory reset. When I got to the flashing yellow light phase, and withheld the bent paper clip, the light showed unblinking yellow. TC still couldn't be found by Airport Utility.

This I think is the final. At one point (above) the TC was in fact sending WiFi, my Kindle picked it up. I didn't recognize the source and Airport didn't either. I'm in an apartment complex and I didn't think much of it--but I should have. I was able to reset TC(above) and get to go Green, but Kindle found no useable WiFi signal. Green, but no signal. I was never again able to connect with sparse.bundle hooking up Cox's modem to TC and the TC by Ethernet to the iMac. I was able connect to the internet, but nothing else: TC steady green. I think its HD may be dead, no starting vibrations felt--I'll get to the Apple Store and see. It's in warrantee.
I downloaded a trial antivirus or cleaning program and it found a non-native "helper" in Unix that sent out error messages that stopped its going on. Reading David Pogue's The Missing Manual, I learned that a guest account protected-file in the Unix sub-system is beyond an administrtor's reach. If he tries to get in he'll get, "Permission denied." This helper goes well beyond that. He takes preemptive action before he can be asked. I know this beast! I would have to say, in a way, its solved: I'll take the iMac back to the authorized repair firm and suggest they fix it. Transportation will have to be arranged. I am waiting for an iMac I think will be revealed next week. I'll have to not connect it to anything that's been connected to my old one: the bug travels. All of the files and folders in old backups are now closed with altered permissions. When I go to have the TC evaluated and maybe replaced, I'll ask them what to do.

TS1544 Changing system keychain password

I've changed my login password in my keychain - to something more secure than the password hurriedly set up at purchase.. I am unable to change the system keychain password to match my new administrator/login keychain password. I have an admin account and my own user account, both with administrator privelages. Any ideas?

Thanks baltwo
To clarify, I only have one admin account, just changed the login keychain password and account password to be something more secure.
Does this mean I have to delete/remove the admin user account to delete the sytem.keychain? or can I delete the system keychain only without having to rebuild a new account....If the latter, do I just find the MacintoshHD/Library/Keychains/system.keychain and delete? I can't imagine it's that simple.

Change Change System Keychain Password

I can unlock the system keychain but when I choose "Change Password for Keychain "System"..." it tells me "Sorry, you entered an invalid password"
Why?

You probably didn't create a password for your System keychain!!!
Take a look at this: http://developer.apple.com/DOCUMENTATION/DARWIN/Reference/ManPages/man8/systemke ychain.8.html
According to Apple, the System keychain normally doesn't have a known password and passwords to items in the System keychain are only unlockable by the system! It is possible to force creation of a new System keychain via the Terminal, and specify a password of your choice, but I'm not sure you really want/need to do that. If you think an item on the System keychain may have an old or unneeded password, you're always able to delete the item from the keychain. If it needs to be there, it'll get added again in the normal course of things...
To repeat: Not being able to manually view the passwords stored on the System keychain is normal, expected behaviour.

TWO System keychains?

Out of curiosity, I double-clicked on "System.keychain" in /Library/Keychains. Keychain Access opened, and now shows two "System" keychains in its list on the left. Both appear to have identical contents, and both are in the same location (/Library/Keychains/System.keychain) according to the little "tool-tip" that pops up when I hover over each of them.
Does anyone know: Shouldn't there be only one System.keychain? How/why did the other appear, and how can I get rid of it?

it's still just one system keychain. you just opened it twice. this is quite harmless. if it really bothers you quit keychain access and delete the file /users/username/library/preferences/com.apple.security.plist. then start keychain access and there will be just one system keychain there.

Keychain: System

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