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up vote 5 down vote favorite

Google Support says:

The type of lock that's acceptable may be predetermined by your system administrator.

Where I can define what's acceptable? I can regenerate the certificate if needed.

So I can use slide lockscreen again.

(I'm using CM9 RC1, Android 4.0.4)

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I will accept a solution that installs the certificate to system directly, thus bypassing the pin requirement. – rodrigo.dk Jul 9 '12 at 15:09
1  
To secure your credentials it's a requirement that you use one of the lockscreen types that has some kind of secret code (pattern, PIN or password). What that line is telling you is that your administrator can (normally via an Exchange ActiveSync policy) lock down your phone so that only some types of those are accepted, for instance they may not trust pattern-locks, and may think that 4-digit PINs don't have enough combinations. It's not saying that you can turn off this security requirement. – GAThrawn Jul 9 '12 at 16:09

2 Answers

up vote 1 down vote accepted

The problem with disabling the lockscreen security using the toggle/profile is that the lockscreen widgets don't appear either so you can't slide to unlock. Also, when you reboot your phone the buttons don't work until you retoggle the setting again.

Another way is to install the certificate as usual then backup the /data/misc/keychain and keystore directories using something that preserves the ACLs such as Root Explorer to a location that supports ACLs. I suggest copying them to /tmp. Then clear the credentials from Settings and enable Slide To Unlock. Then copy back the folders from /tmp. The CA will be installed.

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This one is interesting. Thanks! – rodrigo.dk Nov 11 '12 at 21:07
This does not work anymore. As soon as you try to use the certificate somewhere (such as in connecting to a wifi network) the OS requires you to set a lock on the screen again. – Cory Klein Nov 27 '12 at 15:48
@CoryKlein If you click cancel it will prompt you for a PIN and you can enter the last one you set. It's needed to decrypt the data. – Kurian Nov 28 '12 at 1:35
@Kurian - So I followed the instructions above, and when I try to connect to a wifi network it says "You need to set a lock screen PIN", I click "Cancel", and nothing happens. If I hit "Ok" then cancel out from there, it still doesn't ask for the PIN. – Cory Klein Jan 8 at 21:35
@CoryKlein I misread your previous comment. I was talking about VPNs. Connecting to a VPN prompts you for the last lockscreen PIN to decrypt your credentials. I don't know if it works for personal certificates with private keys. I know it does work for installing trusted CA certificates. It might also be the specific ROM you're using. Pre-ICS AOSP ROMs never needed a lockscreen PIN for saving VPN credentials. – Kurian Jan 16 at 3:49
up vote 0 down vote

  • You can make use of CyanogenMod's profiles.
    (For other readers: this needs the custom CyanogenMod Rom version 9+)

    Just create or modify an existing profile and switch off "screen lock" there.

    It's: System Settings->Profiles->Default->Lock screen mode->Disabled

  • Integrate your certificate into the standard Android keystore file

    See CAcert's excellent howto here

    I'm not sure however if you can do this with a self-signed cert (you might have to switch to a self-made CA maybe (use tinyca for a nice gui-tool on *nix)).

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This does not work (anymore). As soon as you have installed certificates (e.g. the ones from cacert.org), this option/item in the profile is grayed out. – blueyed Apr 4 at 20:00
Thanks for the information... – ce4 Apr 5 at 13:12

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