Enter the master password for the software security

I have 2 separate computers. One works fine with Thunderbird E-Mail,and Firefox. The other one keeps coming up with a Password Required blue square. Inside the square it states: Please enter the master password for the Software Security Device. Then a OK square and a Cancel Square. Sometimes when you install Firefox and import passwords from a Mozilla Suite or SeaMonkey profile that causes Firefox to think you set a master password even though you never created one.

If this happens, reset the master password as explained above. If that doesn't work exit Firefox and delete the encryption keys key3. There is a known bug that sometimes occurs when updating from 2. If this happens, try resetting the master password as explained above. If that doesn't work exit Thunderbird and delete the key3. This page was last modified , 18 March The scrypt algorithm, an intentionally slow key derivation function, is used for generating the master key to make a brute-force attack infeasible.

The template seed is a site-specific secret in binary form, generated from the master key, the site name and the counter using the HMAC-SHA algorithm. It is later converted to a character string using the password templates. The template seed makes every password unique to the website and to the user. The binary template seed is then converted to one of six available password types. The default type is the Maximum Security Password , others can be selected if the service's password policy does not allow passwords of that format:.

Billemont also created multiple free software implementations of the Master Password algorithm, licensed under the GPLv3. Copy link. Once we would hit cancel, our content normally appeared after if you click on the image it will rotate it, looked good on my computer before upload if you click on the image it will rotate it, looked good on my computer before upload Note that even if they were logged in, they would get the pop-up. There are some things we could do to make this better: Just store the FxA credentials outside the password manager store.

That's the simplest option but we'd have to think about whether we lose anything security-wise. Store the FxA credentials in the system keychain, if available. This would produce a much better user experience, but I don't know the complexity of doing that in a cross-platform manner. Get rid of "master password" and just use the system key chain for the whole password store. IIRC this option is favoured by ryanfeeley ; it might be something we can request the new password-manager team to work on with us.

This is not actionable on the fxa-auth-server. Contributor Author. I'll create a card for this in my backlog and close it here.