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I need to access some of the content of an old OS X keychain.

I know the password - this isn't about cracking ;-)

What I don't have is a Mac. I do have the keychain files on a backup drive.

Is there any way to get at the contents on an Ubuntu box? A port of the OS X /usr/bin/security somewhere for example?

A definitive "no" would be as useful as a "yes".

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    According to Wikipedia, the OS X keychain toolkit is open source. (I know it's for BSD, but...) You might be able to compile security yourself. Oct 29, 2012 at 20:49
  • Any idea where Mac OS X keeps the wifi asswords so we can read them with the answers? Apr 22, 2015 at 17:41

3 Answers 3

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If you are not afraid of a small amount of scripting, there is a python wrapper for the security command with a short tutorial here. I have never had to do this before, so I can't speak to its efficacy.

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  • After following a few links, there's also this, which should provide a workable GUI.
    – astex
    Nov 1, 2012 at 18:58
  • Unfortunately that doesn't help since it only gives access to the OS X keychain when running on OS X. It's just provides a python way of talking to /usr/bin/security. It doesn't help on other platforms.
    – adrianh
    Nov 2, 2012 at 9:24
  • I don't think that's the case for the second solution mentioned in the comments. Sorry, I should have clarified.
    – astex
    Nov 2, 2012 at 14:48
  • It does apply to that - source here bitbucket.org/kang/python-keyring-lib/src/… - OS X specific ;)
    – adrianh
    Nov 3, 2012 at 7:58
  • The link you've referenced 404s. Apr 26, 2014 at 13:40
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I think you don't have a similar tool in Linux to do that.

From all the tools i have seen, they all require that you have Mac OS X to use them. For example, keychaindump requires securityd command.

So i guess the only option you have left is to borrow someone's mac.

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No, the entire keychain concept is to avoid that from happening. There might be some hackish way to do it, but your not supposed to be able to.

The OS X keychain uses Triple DES as its encryption algorithm which is quite secure, but it is growing older and has been superseded by newer encryption algorithms with longer key lengths. The US government has deprecated the use of Triple DES and has set AES as its new standard.

(from http://help.agilebits.com/1Password3/keychain_comparison.html)

I recommend considering the data lost. But still changing any password that may have been in it (if someone else gained access).

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    No, the keychain concept is to prevent people who don't know the password from accessing it. He's got the credentials, so it should be possible, with some work. Nov 2, 2012 at 15:42
  • He might have his password but I believe it's also encrypted with a OS X key.
    – coteyr
    Nov 2, 2012 at 17:02
  • @coteyr - you're incorrect. Keychains can be copied between OS X machines - so they're not tied to any kind of machine specific key. Any kind of OS specific key would be trivially crackable since it would have to be public for decryption to actually happen.
    – adrianh
    Nov 3, 2012 at 7:55
  • Source Code May help you adrianh. Some Docs May be of use. but thats all I could find. I still know that I have a very hard time moving my keychain from one mac to another but that could be application specific. Sorry if the answer is wrong. (sorry for the double post was reading the code)
    – coteyr
    Nov 3, 2012 at 15:02

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