Beyond Linux® From Scratch (systemd Edition) - Version 12.4

Chapter 33. GNOME Libraries and Desktop

libsecret-0.21.7

Introduction to libsecret

The libsecret package contains a GObject based library for accessing the Secret Service API.

This package is known to build and work properly using an LFS 12.4 platform.

Package Information

libsecret Dependencies

Required

GLib-2.84.4 (GObject Introspection recommended)

Recommended

libgcrypt-1.11.2 (or GnuTLS-3.8.10, for cryptography), and Vala-0.56.18

Optional

Gi-DocGen-2025.4 and docbook-xml-4.5, docbook-xsl-nons-1.79.2, libxslt-1.1.43 (to build manual pages), Valgrind-3.25.1 (can be used in tests), and tpm2-tss (for TPM support)

Optional (Required for the test suite)

D-Bus Python-1.4.0, Gjs-1.84.2, and PyGObject-3.52.3

Required Runtime Dependency

gnome-keyring-48.0

[Note]

Note

Any package requiring libsecret expects GNOME Keyring to be present at runtime.

Installation of libsecret

Install libsecret by running the following commands: 

mkdir bld &&
cd    bld &&

meson setup --prefix=/usr       \
            --buildtype=release \
            -D gtk_doc=false    \
            ..                  &&
ninja

If you have Gi-DocGen-2025.4 installed and wish to build the API documentation for this package, issue: 

sed "s/api_version_major/'0.21.7'/"            \
    -i ../docs/reference/libsecret/meson.build &&
meson configure -D gtk_doc=true                &&
ninja

Now, as the root user: 

ninja install

To test the results, issue: dbus-run-session ninja test.

Command Explanations

--buildtype=release: Specify a buildtype suitable for stable releases of the package, as the default may produce unoptimized binaries.

-D gtk_doc=false: Allow building this package without Gi-DocGen-2025.4 installed. If you have Gi-DocGen-2025.4 installed and you wish to rebuild and install the API documentation, a meson configure command will reset this option.

-D manpage=false: Use this switch if you have not installed libxslt-1.1.43 and DocBook packages.

-D crypto=gnutls: Use this switch if you want to use GnuTLS-3.8.10 for cryptography instead of libgcrypt-1.11.2.

-D crypto=disabled: Use this switch if you don't have GnuTLS-3.8.10 or libgcrypt-1.11.2 installed. Note that disabling transport encryption support by doing this is not recommended.

Contents

Installed Program: secret-tool
Installed Library: libsecret-1.so
Installed Directories: /usr/include/libsecret-1 and /usr/share/doc/libsecret-0.21.7

Short Descriptions

secret-tool

is a command line tool that can be used to store and retrieve passwords

libsecret-1.so

contains the libsecret API functions