which application is trying to access a private ssh key?

since a few days my Gnome based system (Fedora 21) pops up a request for the pass phrase for a certain private ssh key:

An application wants access to the private key <name-of-the-key>, but it is locked:

The request pops up several times in a row - regardless whether or not I enter the pass phrase. I know this behavior from SparkleShare when it manages more than one repository so I guess this is just bad implementation rather than a security issue.

Is there a way to find out which application wants to access that key? I didn't find a hint in the logs yet but I don't really know how I should search..

Solution 1:

I've had this same problem, and has been very difficult to come up with a solution.

The main problem is gnome-keyring. To stop getting those annoying messages you have to disable that keyring.

These steps will get the keyring disabled, provided that you have it actually installed.

1. Test if it is installed:

   dpkg -L gnome-keyring
   

   if you get the list of files installed by that package, then it is in your system.

2. Copy these files, from their original system folder to a folder inside your home:

   cp /etc/xdg/autostart/gnome-keyring-* ~/.config/autostart
   

3. Make sure that, for each file copied in the last step, there's a line disabling that service:

   X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled=false
   

   • One way to do this in tcsh:

     cd ~/.config/autostart
     foreach i (gnome-keyring*)
         grep -q -F 'X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled=false' $i || echo 'X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled=false' >> $i
     end
     

   • One way to do this in bash:

     cd ~/.config/autostart
     for i in gnome-keyring*;
         do grep -q -F 'X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled=false' $i || echo 'X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled=false' >> $i;
     done
     

I got most of this solution from:

[1] http://ask.xmodulo.com/disable-gnome-keyring-linux-desktop.html