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| <TITLE>How secure storage works</TITLE> |
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| <H1 class="Head">How secure storage works</H1> |
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| <p>Let's consider a concrete example of CVS integration. When you specify a password for a CVS connection, |
| the application offers you an option to save your user name and password using secure storage.</p> |
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| <p align="center"><img alt="Schema of secure storage encrypting data" src="../images/equinox_secure_storage_start.png"><br> |
| </p> |
| <p align="center"><b>Picture 1. How secure storage works.</b></p> |
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| <p>Your CVS password is passed as data to secure storage. Secure storage uses a "master" password |
| to encrypt it and store the encrypted CVS password in a file on disk.</p> |
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| <p>The master password is obtained from a password provider module. The master passwords |
| are obtained in a "lazy" fashion, only when they are about to be used. Password providers can use |
| different techniques:</p> |
| <ul> |
| <li>on <i>Windows</i>, the master password is generated as a random value that is encrypted based on your |
| Windows login information and stored in secure storage;</li> |
| <li>on <i>Macintosh</i>, the master password is initially created as a random value that is stored in |
| the OS keyring;</li> |
| <li>the default password provider simply prompts you for a password;</li> |
| <li>other password providers might be supplied in your application.</li> |
| </ul> |
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| <p>When data is saved with secure storage, the password provider is selected based on the priorities from |
| the list of enabled password providers. Only that provider can be used in future to decrypt the data.</p> |
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| <p><img alt="Related concepts" src="../images/ngrelc.png" border="0"> |
| <br><A href="ref-securestorage-start.htm">Secure storage</A> |
| <br><A href="ref-securestorage-recovery.htm">Password recovery</A> |
| <br><A href="ref-securestorage-passwd.htm">Life of a master password</A> |
| </p> |
| <p><img alt="Related reference" src="../images/ngrelr.png" border="0"> |
| <br><a href="ref-securestorage-prefs.htm">Secure storage preference page</a> |
| <br><a href="ref-securestorage-options.htm">Secure storage runtime options</a> |
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