Correction to the patch-0002 report: after a reboot the Hub icon asks for a password AND the correct free (desktop) password is rejected there, while desktop sign-in accepts it. Patch 0002/0003 explain the icon prompt (legacy hub_manual_logout cookie; fixed in 0003), but the rejection itself means verify_system_password() never gets a conclusive crypt answer in the Hub unit and its PAM fallback cannot load either: on NixOS a bare libcrypt.so.1/libpam.so.0 resolves through LD_LIBRARY_PATH or not at all (or to glibc's failure-token stub), and until now every stage failed silently into a generic 'Incorrect password'.
password-model.nix now puts pkgs.libxcrypt and pkgs.pam on sovran-hub-web's LD_LIBRARY_PATH so both the crypt fallbacks and PAM can actually load. verify_system_password() now logs, journal-visible and never containing a password or hash: the shadow hash scheme, every libcrypt source tried and whether it loaded, and PAM's service + return code when it has to decide.
1) Clicking the desktop Hub icon demanded the Hub password after any sign-out: api_logout set a hub_manual_logout cookie for 400 days and /auto-login honoured it. The icon is a trusted local entry point (its user is already signed in to the OS as free), so /auto-login now ignores and clears that legacy cookie and logout no longer sets it. Sign-out still destroys the session, and LAN clients -- who never get auto-login -- must still enter the password.
2) The Administrator (root) row in System Passwords showed the free/Hub hint verbatim. Root has no desktop or Hub sign-in and nothing refreshes its display copy, so it now gets a root-specific hint (sudo passwd root to set it; Hub Security Reset to make the tile show one again).
3) Brave prompted for a locked 'Default keyring' on Hub launch: the password cleanup removed configuration.nix's keyrings/default pointer and password-model.nix never re-seeded it, so gnome-keyring fell back to an encrypted keyring named Default. password-model.nix now seeds default -> login (the blank keyring) via tmpfiles, and its activation migration restores the pointer and moves any encrypted default.keyring aside (kept, never deleted).
verify_system_password() trusted the first loadable libcrypt. A library that cannot speak the shadow hash's algorithm (yescrypt, NixOS's default) answers with the '*0' sentinel, which was compared to the hash and reported as a wrong password -- even though the same password still signed in at the desktop. Following the System Passwords tile's 'sign out and back in' hint then locked the user out of the Hub, asking for a 'new' Hub password that does not exist: Hub login is the free account password, verified against /etc/shadow.
Try every loadable libcrypt, treat None/'*' replies as inconclusive rather than wrong, and when no library can decide, verify via PAM -- the same check GDM performs. Also replaces the sign-out hint (server + JS fallback) with wording that says the Hub has no separate password and not to sign out unless you know the current desktop password.
Recovery for an already locked-out user whose desktop login still works: on the machine itself, clear the localhost:8937 cookies and open http://localhost:8937/auto-login (localhost-only), or run 'sudo change-free-password' in a terminal to set a known free/Hub password.
The passwords update made the System Passwords tile the only tile whose credential resolution calls system_password.verify_system_password(). That loaded libcrypt with no error handling: an unloadable LIBCRYPT (e.g. a stale Nix store path) raised OSError through _resolve_credential(), so GET /api/service-detail/root-password-setup.service returned 500 and the Hub showed only 'Could not load service details.'
Verification now fails closed, never fatal: _crypt() falls back through LIBCRYPT / find_library / libcrypt.so.1/.so.2, verify_system_password() returns False on any load or crypt failure, _resolve_credential() degrades that one credential to the 'Changed outside the Hub' hint instead of 500-ing the modal, and the login-time display-copy heal is best-effort.
Adds tests/test_system_password.py regression tests.
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