[kwlug-disc] Prompting for passwords in wicd

[Paul Nijjar]

This is probably more of a UW question than a KWLUG one, but there is
enough overlap that I might find an answer here. (Next maybe somebody
could solve my .muttrc problems.)

I am trying to configure my laptop to use the "eduroam" network at UW.
My network manager is wicd. From what I can tell eduroam uses WPA2
Enterprise, which uses a central authenticator for granting network
access.

Here's the problem: the authentication password for the network is my
WatIAM password, which is one of the most valuable passwords I have at
UW: it can be used to read my email, reset passwords on other systems,
forward my email, authenticate against many websites, etc. The last
thing I want to do is store this password in plaintext. But wicd
creates a credentials file (/etc/wicd/wireless-settings.conf on my
system) which does exactly that. Yes, the file is protected with
permissions, but that is not good enough to make me sleep easy at
night.

Can I configure wicd to prompt me for the password when it needs it
instead of storing it in a plaintext file?

If it is mandatory to store the password, can I configure wicd to
store it in some encrypted way that requires me to unlock it with a
passphrase?

How is this not insane?

- Paul

-- 
http://pnijjar.freeshell.org