Hi Folks,

I've looked around the internet but I can't seem to find an answer to this. I'm using kwallet to store my network and local passwords, which is supposed to be the most secure method available to KDE.

Though once I open the wallet to allow kontact to connect to my email account, the open wallet can be viewed in the wallet manager with no password, and all of my stored passwords are availble in plaintext for anyone to see. Even setting the wallet to when the screen is locked doesn't seem to work. The wallet itself does not have an empty password.

Am I doing something wrong or missing something?

Try using the KDE Wallet Manager to manually close the wallet. Simply right click on the wallet and select "Close" to perform this. The KDE Wallet Manager can usually be found in the hidden section of the system tray.

I've done that, but since akonadi checks my email every 5 minutes it just asks me for the password and opens the wallet again.

The wallet is supposed to show your passwords in plain text when it's open. It gives the weight on the user, if it's open it presumes you opened it and want it open so that you can use your passwords.

Don't know if kWallet locks itself when you lock your screen, but on GNOME the keyring app (Gnome version of kWallet) automatically does this when you lock your screen. Perhaps some of the users more familiar with KDE can answer this one.

So just locking your screen when you're off for that well deserved coffee break is probably the best course of action, I started doing that a long time ago and now it's a learned habit, I do it every time when I leave my PC even for a minute.

In the case of opening your kWallet every 5 minutes, GNOME keyring has a neat little feature that KDE kWallet lacks - it automatically unlocks when you log it. This means no annoying asking about opening the keyring every single time an app that is already in the allowed list wants to use that pass (annoying especially on ssh sessions through Dolphin or Folder Views). But I believe that this feature will be added sooner or later (7 years in the making so sooner would sure be more nice than later ).

If you look at the settings in KWalletManager you can choose how long you want the wallet to stay open (more precisely, when you want it to close). If none of those settings suit you, you can just leave them all unchecked, which means the wallet stays open until you choose to close it. Your system, your choice.

You can also set it to so you need to enter a password again to open kwallet.

Does kWallet lock itself when you lock the screen?

An option is present there in the three automatic lock options annew mentioned (tick Close when the screensaver starts)