Ubuntu
seahorse package

Have I forgotten my passphrase?

Asked by Rosemary Hendley

I'm trying to sign the Ubuntu Code of Conduct. I started three months ago by making a personal key with Seahorse and went on to use a clearsign command. The command worked in that a .asc file was produced. However, there was an error in uploading and I raised a question [https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/yelp/+question/97556]. Recently someone made a suggestion and I ran the clearspring command again. It asked for a passphrase. I couldn't see that I'd left any notes as to what it is which strongly suggests that it is one of my two favourite passwords. If it was anything else I would have written it down, as I don't trust my memory. I made the two attempts and they both failed.

Is it possible to go into Seahorse to look at the passphrase for my personal key to check whether I am typing it in correctly?

(I think forgetting a pass phrase must be a foreseen problem, but I can't find it in Help or the questions for Karmic Koala).

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Ubuntu seahorse Edit question
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Solved by:
A. Denton
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Revision history for this message
Best A. Denton (aquina) said : 		#1

As far as I know it's not possible to recover the passphrase (at least with your computing power). Further we don't know wheter your sory is correct or you wanna just break somewhere into.

I stongly recommend you to perform a revocation of that key and generate/create a new with Seahorse. Then use the changed key to sing your code of conduct again.

Further I refer to "I'd opened it in OpenWriter[...]" you stated in https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/yelp/+question/97556. That sounds *bad*! Never open ASCII with word processors. Use jEdit, nano, mousepad or xfilewriter instead!

Revision history for this message
Rosemary Hendley (catbells) said : 		#2

Thanks Aquina, that solved my question.