Should support keyrings.alt backend for headless systems
Metadata
Current evaluation
charmcraft login on headless systems cannot persist credentials: no keyring is available, and the keyrings.alt backend is not bundled in the snap, so PYTHON_KEYRING_BACKEND crashes with ModuleNotFoundError. Unlabeled, no maintainer response.
Suggested action: needs triage
Reason: The issue has no labels, zero comments, and no maintainer acknowledgement in 113 days, so it has not been triaged. It remains valid: current store.py still relies on keyring with only an ephemeral fallback (from PR #1741), and keyrings.alt is absent from pyproject.toml and the snap, so the ModuleNotFoundError is still reproducible. Bundling python3-keyrings.alt (or an equivalent file-based backend) is a plausible fix but needs a maintainer decision on backend choice and passphrase handling for headless use.
Impact:
45
Quick Win:
29.25
Staleness:
50
Complexity:
35
Confidence:
80
Support Request:
15
Issue body
### Check existing issues
- [x] I've verified that this bug isn't described by any existing issues.
### Bug description
On a headless system, `charmcraft login` warns that it failed to obtain a keyring and that every store interaction will go through the web authentication process again:
```
$ charmcraft login
WARNING: Cannot get a keyring. Every store interaction that requires authentication will require you to log in again.Opening an authorization web page in your browser.
If it does not open, please open this URL:
https://api.jujucharms.com/identity/login?did=a6f....
```
If I try to switch to the `python3-keyrings.alt` package and the `EncryptedFile` keyring type, it also fails:
```
ubuntu@phased-updater-ops:~$ export PYTHON_KEYRING_BACKEND=keyrings.alt.file.EncryptedKeyring
ubuntu@phased-updater-ops:~$ charmcraft login
charmcraft internal error: ModuleNotFoundError("No module named 'keyrings'")
```
Probably because the `python3-keyrings.alt` package is not installed inside the snap. Therefore I seem to be forced to export the plain text version of the authentication to a text file with `--export`.
### Steps to reproduce
Just run `charmcraft login` on a headless system.
As a second step, export `PYTHON_KEYRING_BACKEND=keyrings.alt.file.EncryptedKeyring` and run `charmcraft login` again to get the `ModuleNotFoundError`.
### Environment
Ubuntu 24.04 VM.
### Log output
```shell
2026-05-07 19:51:24.841 charmcraft internal error: ModuleNotFoundError("No module named 'keyrings'")
2026-05-07 19:51:24.844 Traceback (most recent call last):
2026-05-07 19:51:24.844 File "/snap/charmcraft/7517/lib/python3.12/site-packages/craft_application/application.py", line 663, in run
2026-05-07 19:51:24.844 return_code = self._run_inner()
2026-05-07 19:51:24.844 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
2026-05-07 19:51:24.844 File "/snap/charmcraft/7517/lib/python3.12/site-packages/charmcraft/application/main.py", line 143, in _run_inner
2026-05-07 19:51:24.844 return super()._run_inner()
2026-05-07 19:51:24.844 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
2026-05-07 19:51:24.844 File "/snap/charmcraft/7517/lib/python3.12/site-packages/craft_application/application.py", line 640, in _run_inner
2026-05-07 19:51:24.844 return_code = dispatcher.run() or os.EX_OK
2026-05-07 19:51:24.844 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
2026-05-07 19:51:24.844 File "/snap/charmcraft/7517/lib/python3.12/site-packages/craft_cli/dispatcher.py", line 564, in run
2026-05-07 19:51:24.844 return self._loaded_command.run(self._parsed_command_args)
2026-05-07 19:51:24.844 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
2026-05-07 19:51:24.844 File "/snap/charmcraft/7517/lib/python3.12/site-packages/charmcraft/application/commands/store.py", line 218, in run
2026-05-07 19:51:24.844 self._services.store.login(packages=packages, **kwargs)
2026-05-07 19:51:24.844 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
2026-05-07 19:51:24.844 File "/snap/charmcraft/7517/lib/python3.12/site-packages/craft_application/services/service_factory.py", line 333, in __getattr__
2026-05-07 19:51:24.844 result = self.get_class(name) if name.endswith("Class") else self.get(name)
2026-05-07 19:51:24.844 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
2026-05-07 19:51:24.844 File "/snap/charmcraft/7517/lib/python3.12/site-packages/craft_application/services/service_factory.py", line 318, in get
2026-05-07 19:51:24.844 instance.setup()
2026-05-07 19:51:24.844 File "/snap/charmcraft/7517/lib/python3.12/site-packages/charmcraft/services/store.py", line 199, in setup
2026-05-07 19:51:24.844 super().setup()
2026-05-07 19:51:24.844 File "/snap/charmcraft/7517/lib/python3.12/site-packages/charmcraft/services/store.py", line 90, in setup
2026-05-07 19:51:24.844 self.client = self.ClientClass(
2026-05-07 19:51:24.844 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
2026-05-07 19:51:24.844 File "/snap/charmcraft/7517/lib/python3.12/site-packages/charmcraft/store/client.py", line 163, in __init__
2026-05-07 19:51:24.844 super().__init__(
2026-05-07 19:51:24.844 File "/snap/charmcraft/7517/lib/python3.12/site-packages/craft_store/store_client.py", line 93, in __init__
2026-05-07 19:51:24.844 super().__init__(
2026-05-07 19:51:24.844 File "/snap/charmcraft/7517/lib/python3.12/site-packages/craft_store/base_client.py", line 79, in __init__
2026-05-07 19:51:24.844 self._auth = Auth(
2026-05-07 19:51:24.844 ^^^^^
2026-05-07 19:51:24.844 File "/snap/charmcraft/7517/lib/python3.12/site-packages/craft_store/auth.py", line 192, in __init__
2026-05-07 19:51:24.844 self._keyring = keyring.get_keyring()
2026-05-07 19:51:24.844 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
2026-05-07 19:51:24.844 File "/snap/charmcraft/7517/lib/python3.12/site-packages/keyring/core.py", line 33, in get_keyring
2026-05-07 19:51:24.844 init_backend()
2026-05-07 19:51:24.844 File "/snap/charmcraft/7517/lib/python3.12/site-packages/keyring/core.py", line 91, in init_backend
2026-05-07 19:51:24.844 set_keyring(_detect_backend(limit))
2026-05-07 19:51:24.844 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
2026-05-07 19:51:24.844 File "/snap/charmcraft/7517/lib/python3.12/site-packages/keyring/core.py", line 105, in _detect_backend
2026-05-07 19:51:24.844 load_env()
2026-05-07 19:51:24.844 File "/snap/charmcraft/7517/lib/python3.12/site-packages/keyring/core.py", line 151, in load_env
2026-05-07 19:51:24.844 return load_keyring(os.environ['PYTHON_KEYRING_BACKEND'])
2026-05-07 19:51:24.844 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
2026-05-07 19:51:24.844 File "/snap/charmcraft/7517/lib/python3.12/site-packages/keyring/core.py", line 142, in load_keyring
2026-05-07 19:51:24.844 class_ = _load_keyring_class(keyring_name)
2026-05-07 19:51:24.844 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
2026-05-07 19:51:24.844 File "/snap/charmcraft/7517/lib/python3.12/site-packages/keyring/core.py", line 132, in _load_keyring_class
2026-05-07 19:51:24.844 __import__(module_name)
2026-05-07 19:51:24.844 ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'keyrings'
```
Evaluation history
| Date | Model | Scores | Action | Summary |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| qwen/qwen3.8-27b |
Impact:
45
Quick Win:
29.25
Staleness:
50
Complexity:
35
Confidence:
80
Support Request:
15
|
needs triage | charmcraft login on headless systems cannot persist credentials: no keyring is available, and the keyrings.alt backend is not bundled in the snap, so PYTHON_KEYRING_BACKEND crashes with ModuleNotFoundError. Unlabeled, no maintainer response. | |
| qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6 |
Staleness:
60
Complexity:
30
Confidence:
85
Support Request:
10
|
needs triage | Request to include keyrings.alt in the charmcraft snap for headless authentication. Currently unlabelled and inactive for 74 days with no maintainer response. | |
| qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6 |
Staleness:
60
Complexity:
30
Confidence:
85
Support Request:
10
|
needs triage | charmcraft login fails to use keyrings.alt backend on headless systems due to missing python3-keyrings.alt package in the snap, causing a ModuleNotFoundError. Untriaged, no maintainer response. | |
| qwen3.6-35b-moe-q4 |
Staleness:
45
Complexity:
30
Confidence:
90
Support Request:
20
|
needs triage | Request to include python3-keyrings.alt in the charmcraft snap to support headless authentication backends. Currently unlabelled and awaiting maintainer review. | |
| qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6 |
Staleness:
40
Complexity:
40
Confidence:
90
Support Request:
10
|
needs triage | charmcraft login fails to use keyrings.alt on headless systems due to missing python3-keyrings.alt in the snap, forcing plain text auth export. Issue is open, unassigned, and unreviewed after 38 days. |
Update history
No update history recorded yet.
Related work
-
Related To:
canonical/charmcraft#1741
(confidence 75%)
PR 'fix(store): fall back to ephemeral keyring' added the graceful fallback that produces the warning the reporter sees; it mitigates the crash but does not provide persistent credentials on headless systems.
Related issues
No related issues found above the similarity threshold.