How to tell what program is asking for a password

authenticationgnomegnome3

I'm getting an occasional "Authentication request" dialog from Gnome, and I don't know what program is asking or even which account it's talking about.

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[email redacted] is an email address of mine, but I've used that address for more than one account, and they all have different passwords. I don't know what it's asking for. This dialog tends to pop up when I unlock the computer after having been away for a while. I just click Cancel, and the dialog goes away for a while. I don't get any other message when I do that.

I'm running Gnome 3.8.3 on Arch Linux.

Note: After writing this question, I thought of checking Online Accounts in Gnome Settings. I noticed that it showed my Google account (under that email) as "credential expired". Is that what was causing it? I signed back in to my Google account, but it's too soon to tell if that fixed the problem. And I still want to know how to tell who's asking for my password (and for which account).

Best Answer

You can use xprop, available in the xorg-xprop package.

Just run xprop and select the password prompt window. As an example, xprop outputs the following information for my terminal emulator.

WM_STATE(WM_STATE):
        window state: Normal
        icon window: 0x0
WM_LOCALE_NAME(STRING) = "en_US.UTF-8"
WM_CLASS(STRING) = "screen-256color", "screen-256color"
WM_HINTS(WM_HINTS):
        Client accepts input or input focus: True
WM_NORMAL_HINTS(WM_SIZE_HINTS):
        program specified size: 564 by 340
        program specified resize increment: 7 by 14
        program specified base size: 4 by 4
WM_CLIENT_MACHINE(STRING) = "paradark"
WM_NAME(STRING) = "st"
WM_PROTOCOLS(ATOM): protocols  WM_DELETE_WINDOW

The WM_NAME field may be especially useful in your case.

xprop will not work if you are unable to select the window. You can use xwininfo instead. xwininfo is available in the xorg-xwininfo package. Here is an example of its usage:

$ xwininfo -display :0 -tree -root
xwininfo: Window id: 0x286 (the root window) "LG3D"

  Root window id: 0x286 (the root window) "LG3D"
  Parent window id: 0x0 (none)
     21 children:
     ...
     0x1a00001 "st": ("screen-256color" "screen-256color")  862x532+1056+546  +1056+546
     0x1600001 "st": ("screen-256color" "screen-256color")  1054x1065+-2112+13  +-2112+13
     0x600001 "st": ("screen-256color" "screen-256color")  862x532+-1728+546  +-1728+546
     0x400004 (has no name): ()  1x1+0+0  +0+0

If you need additional information about the window, use xprop with the window's ID.

$ xprop -display :0 -id 0x600001
WM_STATE(WM_STATE):
        window state: Normal
        icon window: 0x0
WM_LOCALE_NAME(STRING) = "en_US.UTF-8"
WM_CLASS(STRING) = "screen-256color", "screen-256color"
WM_HINTS(WM_HINTS):
        Client accepts input or input focus: True
WM_NORMAL_HINTS(WM_SIZE_HINTS):
        program specified size: 564 by 340
        program specified resize increment: 7 by 14
        program specified base size: 4 by 4
WM_CLIENT_MACHINE(STRING) = "paradark"
WM_NAME(UTF8_STRING) = "st"
WM_PROTOCOLS(ATOM): protocols  WM_DELETE_WINDOW
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