The KeyRing is a utility for saving sensitive data, such as your DiffPlug credentials and your passwords to remote filesystems. You can also use it to store any other data that you want to keep secret.

The KeyRing consists of a set of keys, each of which holds a secret. Anyone who gets access to your computer can see your keys, but only somebody who knows the password can see the secrets. Your secrets are encrypted using 128-bit AES, the same algorithm used by the US government to protect important data. If you would like further details on how the KeyRing stores your secrets and why they are safe, check out the KeyRing security details page.

Although the KeyRing can store your DiffPug credentials inside of it, your KeyRing password is not related to your DiffPlug account in any way.

Setting up the KeyRing

You must set up the KeyRing before DiffPlug can save your passwords.

Click the keyring button KeyRing button on the toolbar to open the KeyRing, and click Setup.

empty keyring

Type a password, type it again to confirm, then click Setup.

If you ever forget this password, there is no way to get your secrets back. Make sure you remember it.

keyring setup

Now your KeyRing is setup, and you can use it to store secrets for you.

blank keyring

Adding a New Key

Click the Add new key button to add a new key. Enter the key and secret and click Add.

add new key

A new key will now appear in the list of keys. You can add as many key-secret pairs as you want.

list of keys

Locking and unlocking the KeyRing

You can manually lock and unlock the KeyRing by clicking the Lock/Unlock button in the KeyRing dialog.

Note that when DiffPlug first opens, the KeyRing will be locked. Therefore anytime that you close DiffPlug (not minimize to taskbar, but actually close it), the KeyRing will be locked the next time that you open DiffPlug. You will need to enter your KeyRing password and press “Unlock” to unlock it:

unlock keyring