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I'm using Ubuntu 14.04 with the network-manager. It stores all Information about wireless networks, VPNs, ... in /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections and I was just wondering why... I thought the home folder of each user should contain all configuration files, especially those with security-relevant information. I'm using an encrypted home directory and want this information to be encrypted, too.

Is there any other directory (in the home folder) where the network-manager reads configuration files from (after login!)

Jonas
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  • This is an excellent question without a good answer so far. It is crazy that something as sensitive as a user's home wifi password should be stored in /etc and not the user's home space – Sqerstet Jun 04 '20 at 05:41

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It's stored there because "All users may connect to this network" ticked on that Wifi connection point. Open network indicator -> Edit connections ... -> Select network -> Click edit... -> in general tab untick "All users may connect to this network".

SOURCE

Pabi
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  • No that is not the case. This is already unticked for all connections, but the configuration files are still in the same directory – Jonas Jun 26 '14 at 08:49
  • You can follow this guide if you want to put them in the home foder. But a Ubuntu developer pointed out that this workaround might introduce a security whole when an attacker has access to your running system. You can read about that in the Source of the answer. – Pabi Jun 26 '14 at 09:14
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    Pabi's last comment refers to a now dead link, here is a Wayback Machine version http://web.archive.org/web/20131230014629/http://echt.guth.so/moving-networkmanager-config-files-to-home/ – Steve Dee Feb 16 '20 at 17:28
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sudo mv /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections /home/you
sudo ln -s /home/you/system-connections /etc/NetworkManager

Agreed that this should definitely be user config, at least optionally.

Sqerstet
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Though settings for the user are stored in the home directory, settings for the system such as the network configuration, some power management, laptop display brightness etc are stored in the system configuration directories, in /etc and other places.

Some settings, like the proxy being used, are stored in dconf - you can view this in dconf-tools, or for instance the settings for the proxy mode by running:

gsettings get org.gnome.system.proxy mode
Community
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Wilf
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    yes, but why should network credentials be considered as system wide settings instead of user specific settings? – Jonas Jun 26 '14 at 09:00