is keychain in ios threadsafe?

Question

I would like to add some items to the keychain using "secitemadd", but I need to know first, if this is thread safe.

I have read the documentation from apple, but I am unable to find anywhere stating if its thread-safe.

I am amazed how little documentation there is on this. I would imagine that based on the lack of documentation and issues raises on SO, that the API is probably thread safe. — Rory McKinnel, May 11 '15 at 14:51

score 18 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 28 '23 at 12:23

18

In another document, Apple says it is thread safe.

Concurrency Considerations
On iOS, all the functions in this API are thread-safe and reentrant.

edited Apr 28 '23 at 12:23

Mac_Cain13

answered May 22 '15 at 10:13

mash

1

Quinn explains concurrency in Keychain a bit more in depth in this forum post, might be of interest to anyone looking into this: https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/117092?answerId=361922022#361922022 – Mac_Cain13 Apr 28 '23 at 12:25

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 23 '19 at 10:13

0

Keychain isn't thread-safe. If we try to retrieve the keychain information it returns -25300 from time to time in practice. Be careful.

answered Jan 23 '19 at 10:13

Vyacheslav

1

`-25300` = errSecItemNotFound to help those reading; also this answer is only partially accurate -- the accepted answer is accurate. macOS and iOS are **different**. Here, the question clearly states _ios_ thus this answer is incorrect. – Mark Dec 19 '19 at 20:24
It may be helpful noting [there are other reasons](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/32721826/keychain-error-25300-errsecitemnotfound-when-disabling-and-re-enabling-touch) that can cause similar result code. – Mark Dec 19 '19 at 20:25
@Mark and what? the question of what about thread saving. Not about any other reason of -25300. – Vyacheslav Dec 20 '19 at 12:19
@Vyacheslav read [this](https://developer.apple.com/documentation/security/certificate_key_and_trust_services/working_with_concurrency) – Alhomaidhi Sep 11 '21 at 13:11
@Vyacheslav Apple docs state "In iOS, all the functions in this API are thread-safe and reentrant." this is in the Security framework and keychain is part of this framework. I have posted the link above. [This is the link to the apple docs once again](https://developer.apple.com/documentation/security/certificate_key_and_trust_services/working_with_concurrency?language=objc). May I ask what your reference is? – Alhomaidhi Sep 14 '21 at 18:28
@Alhomaidhi I faced the problem where this isn't correct. – Vyacheslav Sep 24 '21 at 12:25

2 Answers2