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How can I have my master password expire after 30mins?

  • 2 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 4 views
  • Last reply by TonyE

kwah
kwah
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I know its not exactly a "problem", but I'd like to have my master password expire ~30mins (or other time period) after using it, similarly to how sudo behaves in the Ubuntu shell (and probably other variants of linux, but I only know of this one definitely doing it).

Basically, my reasoning is that Firefox stays open for days at a time and I want to avoid autofilling of passwords unless the person using it knows the pass or has been temporarily been granted short-term access by someone who knows it (ie, me).

I was also going to mention the prevention of viewing passwords, but a quick test just now shows that this protection is already implemented ;)


Anyhow, is the expiry (requiring the user to re-type the master password after a period of time) currently possible to achieve using existing Firefox features or plugins?

I know its not exactly a "problem", but I'd like to have my master password expire ~30mins (or other time period) after using it, similarly to how sudo behaves in the Ubuntu shell (and probably other variants of linux, but I only know of this one definitely doing it). Basically, my reasoning is that Firefox stays open for days at a time and I want to avoid autofilling of passwords unless the person using it knows the pass or has been temporarily been granted short-term access by someone who knows it (ie, me). I was also going to mention the prevention of viewing passwords, but a quick test just now shows that this protection is already implemented ;) Anyhow, is the expiry (requiring the user to re-type the master password after a period of time) currently possible to achieve using existing Firefox features or plugins?

All Replies (2)

TonyE
TonyE
  • Moderator
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You can use the Master Password Timeout add-on, it is not exactly what you want but does something similar. After a period of inactivity (default 5 minutes but configurable), it will lock out the master security device, requiring the master password to be entered again to use the saved passwords.

TonyE
TonyE
  • Moderator
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I have been looking at some of Firefox's hidden preferences and this feature may already be available, though I have not tried this. The following settings came from an article that was referring to settings for Mozilla Mail, but they are included in Firefox, but I do not know if they work in Firefox.

  1. Type about:config into the location bar and press enter
  2. Accept the warning message that appears, you will be taken to a list of preferences
  3. In the filter box type security
  4. Double-click on the preference security.ask_for_password and change its value to 2
  5. Double-click on the preference security.password_lifetime an change its value to the number of minutes before the password expires

Modified by TonyE