Always Prompt for Password when Sending

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cleverusername
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Joined: July 18th, 2005, 7:00 am

Always Prompt for Password when Sending

Post by cleverusername »

I am supporting a Gmail account in Thunderbird that needs to prompt for a password every time a send is attempted on that account (in Thunderbird). In the SMTP settings, I changed OAuth2 to Normal Password. Now I am prompted by Thunderbird to enter the password. Once. If I send another message, I am not prompted. If I close and reopen Thunderbird, I am prompted for the password only the first time I attempt to send. The password is not stored in Thunderbird's password manager, and I am not checking the box to remember the password. How do I make it prompt me for the password every time? Thank you in advance for your assistance. Dan.
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tanstaafl
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Re: Always Prompt for Password when Sending

Post by tanstaafl »

I suspect its caching the password in memory. The setting signon.rememberSignons enables/disables the password wizard, but I can't find a setting to enable/disable a password cache. Gmail supports two factor authentication, but Thunderbird doesn't provide a way to enter the code you get via a SMS etc. I believe a password fetched from a smart card would also get cached, based on https://sourceforge.net/p/enigmail/foru ... /f2208153/ .

Why do you want to do this? If you explain why perhaps somebody can suggest an alternative solution. For example, are you worried that somebody will send a message using your config if you walk away from the desk for a couple of minutes?

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Protect_the_profiles_contents
cleverusername
Posts: 5
Joined: July 18th, 2005, 7:00 am

Re: Always Prompt for Password when Sending

Post by cleverusername »

This account is on my boss's computer, and the account belongs to her boss. She sends and receives from several email accounts. We set Thunderbird to not remember his password as a safety so that she doesn't send from his account inadvertently. It was the most elegant way to manage this.
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tanstaafl
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Re: Always Prompt for Password when Sending

Post by tanstaafl »

See the add-ons at http://kb.mozillazine.org/Multiple_iden ... rnal_links . Perhaps the Folder Account add-on would help. It lets you associate user accounts and identities with specific folders. So she could configure Thunderbird to only send mail from the boss when a folder in the bosses account is selected.

Another solution would be to use the profile switcher add-on and use a separate profile for the boss. The add-on makes it easier to switch profiles than stopping Thunderbird and starting another copy with a different shortcut whose command line arguments specifies what profile to use. If you did that I'd use very different themes for each profile to provide some visual feedback who she is at the moment.
cleverusername
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Joined: July 18th, 2005, 7:00 am

Re: Always Prompt for Password when Sending

Post by cleverusername »

Thank you for the add-on links. Some of those have potential but add extra steps. My boss needs to move seamlessly and quickly between accounts, and the account that she is in is not necessarily the account from which she will compose. She often has multiple emails/compositions open from multiple accounts. She rarely responds using her boss's account. That is why the password prompt was the perfect solution for her. Do you have any idea why that changed? You mentioned the possibility of a cache issue. The password has to be somewhere.
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tanstaafl
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Re: Always Prompt for Password when Sending

Post by tanstaafl »

I'm confused. Did things work the way you want them when using OAuth2 and the problem only occur if you use "normal password"? If that is true why not change back to OAuth2? The token is normally automatically/transparently replaced before it expires as long as you use that profile regularly.

If the behavior changed when your boss went from OAuth2 to "normal password" that might be because the token used by OAuth2 is not considered a password by the rest of Thunderbird, even though the password manager will store that token.

What file/database the password manager uses to stores passwords is irrelevant. I'd assume a password cache to be in-memory only, and not user accessible.
cleverusername
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Joined: July 18th, 2005, 7:00 am

Re: Always Prompt for Password when Sending

Post by cleverusername »

When I discovered the issue this morning, I deleted all passwords associated with this address in Thunderbird. The next time I tried to access the account, TB launched the Google authorization window. I authorized the account. At this point there was no prompt at all for a password (and there shouldn't have been, as I just authorized it). I then switched from OAuth2 to Normal Password. It prompts me the first time I attempt to send, but after that, it remembers the pw until I close TB. I do not know why this issue has not happened before. It seems like, if I am using Normal Password in SMTP, it should prompt me each time. Does that make sense?
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