factotum is a password management

Password manager

A password manager is software that helps a user organize passwords and PIN codes. The software typically has a local database or a file that holds the encrypted password data for secure logon onto computers, networks, web sites and application data files. Many password managers also work as a form...

 and authentication protocol negotiation

Authentication

Authentication is the act of confirming the truth of an attribute of a datum or entity...

 virtual file system

Virtual file system

A virtual file system or virtual filesystem switch is an abstraction layer on top of a more concrete file system. The purpose of a VFS is to allow client applications to access different types of concrete file systems in a uniform way...

  for Plan 9 from Bell Labs

Plan 9 from Bell Labs

Plan 9 from Bell Labs is a distributed operating system. It was developed primarily for research purposes as the successor to Unix by the Computing Sciences Research Center at Bell Labs between the mid-1980s and 2002...

. When a program wants to authenticate to a service, it requests a key from factotum. If factotum does not have the key, it requests it from the users either via the terminal window or auth/fgui which is then stored in volatile memory

Volatile memory

Volatile memory, also known as volatile storage, is computer memory that requires power to maintain the stored information, unlike non-volatile memory which does not require a maintained power supply...

. factotum then authenticates to the service on behalf of the program. For long term storage, keys are usually stored in secstore or in an encrypted file.

External links

• factotum(4) in Plan 9 Programmer's Manual, Volume 1.
• Security in Plan 9 in Plan 9 Programmer's Manual, Volume 2.