Reevaluating my password management
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It never made sense to me to put password managers in the cloud. Regards to what you intend it to do, you’re making it accessible to a wider audience than necessary. And yet, I’m using iCloud. It’s time for a change.
I’m thinking of just running a locally hosted password manager on my home server and letting my devices sync with it somehow when I’m at home. I have a VPN into my home network when I’m away that automatically triggers when I leave the house, so even that’s not that big an issue, but I’m really not familiar with what’s gonna cleanly integrate with all my stuff and be easy to use. All I know is I wanna kill the cloud functionality of my setup.
I already have a jellyfish server so I figured I would just throw this onto that. Any suggestions?
I switched to Bitwarden after the LastPass stuff a couple years ago, and I just got around to installing Vaultwarden on my TrueNAS system at home. Using a single Cloudflare Tunnel to handle secure external connections for that and other services like Emby easily. Took a little bit to setup following some guides, but has been working flawlessly for me and some friends. You can use the regular Bitwarden apps and extensions since they natively support self hosting.
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It never made sense to me to put password managers in the cloud. Regards to what you intend it to do, you’re making it accessible to a wider audience than necessary. And yet, I’m using iCloud. It’s time for a change.
I’m thinking of just running a locally hosted password manager on my home server and letting my devices sync with it somehow when I’m at home. I have a VPN into my home network when I’m away that automatically triggers when I leave the house, so even that’s not that big an issue, but I’m really not familiar with what’s gonna cleanly integrate with all my stuff and be easy to use. All I know is I wanna kill the cloud functionality of my setup.
I already have a jellyfish server so I figured I would just throw this onto that. Any suggestions?
Sandpass on sandstorm
It's dated, but phenomenal (and secure)
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Shamelessly shilling my OSS project, rook. It provides a secret-server-ish headless tool backed by a KeePass DB.
- Headless server
- Optional and convenient integration with the kernel keyring (on Linux), for locking the server to only provide secrets to the user's session
- Provides a range of search, list, and get commands
- Minimal dependencies and small code base make rook reasonably auditable
You might be interested in rook if you're a KeePassXC user. Why might you want this instead of:
- Gnome secret-server, KDEs wallet, or pass? rook uses your (a) KeePass DB, while most other projects store secrets in their own DBs and require (usually manual) sync'ing when passwords change.
- One of the browser secret storage? Those also keep a bespoke DB which needs to be synced, and they're limited to browser use. Rook supports using secrets in cron jobs or on the command line (e.g. mbsync, vdirsyncer, msmtp, etc, etc).
- KeePassXC? KeePassXC does provide a secret service that mocks Gnome secret-service, but you have to keep KeePassXC (a GUI app) running even if you only rarely use the UI. Rook can also be used on a headless machine.
- The KeePassXC command line tool? That requires entering the password for every request, making it tedious to use and impractical for automated, periodic jobs.
Rook is read-only, and intended to be complementary to KeePassXC. The KeePassXC command line tools are just fine for editing, where providing a password for every action is acceptable, and of course the GUI is quite nice for CRUD.
Damn, that sounds very interesting! The use of a Keepass DB instead of a new one makes it great to have as option. It's something I hadn't think about for a long time.
I'll check it out later and maybe install it after I restore my server, I'm planning to reduce my attack surface too:)
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KeepassXC + Syncthing. Using for 2+ years no issues. Have separate database files for each device and merge them as needed.
I do the same thing on my laptop and gaming PC. My only beef with KeePassXC is that they refuse to implement WebDAV, despite the OG KeePass having it. Otherwise it's fantastic.
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It never made sense to me to put password managers in the cloud. Regards to what you intend it to do, you’re making it accessible to a wider audience than necessary. And yet, I’m using iCloud. It’s time for a change.
I’m thinking of just running a locally hosted password manager on my home server and letting my devices sync with it somehow when I’m at home. I have a VPN into my home network when I’m away that automatically triggers when I leave the house, so even that’s not that big an issue, but I’m really not familiar with what’s gonna cleanly integrate with all my stuff and be easy to use. All I know is I wanna kill the cloud functionality of my setup.
I already have a jellyfish server so I figured I would just throw this onto that. Any suggestions?
if you need to share passwords with other people and do that often then that would be the only reason i would recommend a server-client based password manager. otherwise theres too many points of failure for my liking, especially for something that i use on a daily basis.
KeePass on the other hand is just a single file thats stored locally and all you need is an app to read it. you dont need an internet connection or a VPN to access it remotely. your wifi could be down, even your power could be out and you would still have access to your database
being able autofill desktop program logins was the main reason i switched away from bitwarden years ago
KeepassXC on desktop has a feature called "Autotype" which basically simulates keystrokes to fill in your passwords. theres also an option to integrate with the KeepassXC browser extension, but with Autotype your browser has no connection to your database at all. i kind of feel this is a huge elephant in the room that most other password managers just gloss over. sure, you are getting a lot more convenience by having your browser autofill your passwords but its also adding a huge attack surface just for the sake of a few seconds or a few clicks.
that said, Autotype isnt great at guessing all sites you might be trying to log into but there is this browser extension that will change your browsers window title to show the full site url which KeepassXC can then read
one really underrated feature that i dont see any of the others doing is giving you the ability to use multiple vaults at once. you can have one vault for things that are really important, then everything else in another vault and have different strength passwords/passphrases for each one. i have maybe 300 logins but only around 10% of them are important. its kind of a pain if all you want to do is just log into some random forum but you have to type a long secure master password just to open your vault
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It never made sense to me to put password managers in the cloud. Regards to what you intend it to do, you’re making it accessible to a wider audience than necessary. And yet, I’m using iCloud. It’s time for a change.
I’m thinking of just running a locally hosted password manager on my home server and letting my devices sync with it somehow when I’m at home. I have a VPN into my home network when I’m away that automatically triggers when I leave the house, so even that’s not that big an issue, but I’m really not familiar with what’s gonna cleanly integrate with all my stuff and be easy to use. All I know is I wanna kill the cloud functionality of my setup.
I already have a jellyfish server so I figured I would just throw this onto that. Any suggestions?
I use KeePass (Keepass2Android, KeePassXC, OG KeePass, and KeePassium) for everything. Been using KeePass in general for 20-ish years.
Recently, I decided to export all of my passwords from Firefox, Chrome, and Edge, import the data into my KeePass database under their own folders, then delete everything from the browsers. That way I can move entries that weren't already in the database to their respective locations in the database hierarchy, delete duplicates, and change insecure passwords.
The database is hosted on my phones (work and personal), laptop, gaming PC, and a server at home, all synced with Syncthing. My work laptop also has Portable KeePass that accesses the database via WebDAV to my server.
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I use KeePass (Keepass2Android, KeePassXC, OG KeePass, and KeePassium) for everything. Been using KeePass in general for 20-ish years.
Recently, I decided to export all of my passwords from Firefox, Chrome, and Edge, import the data into my KeePass database under their own folders, then delete everything from the browsers. That way I can move entries that weren't already in the database to their respective locations in the database hierarchy, delete duplicates, and change insecure passwords.
The database is hosted on my phones (work and personal), laptop, gaming PC, and a server at home, all synced with Syncthing. My work laptop also has Portable KeePass that accesses the database via WebDAV to my server.
This
x10
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I use KeePass (Keepass2Android, KeePassXC, OG KeePass, and KeePassium) for everything. Been using KeePass in general for 20-ish years.
Recently, I decided to export all of my passwords from Firefox, Chrome, and Edge, import the data into my KeePass database under their own folders, then delete everything from the browsers. That way I can move entries that weren't already in the database to their respective locations in the database hierarchy, delete duplicates, and change insecure passwords.
The database is hosted on my phones (work and personal), laptop, gaming PC, and a server at home, all synced with Syncthing. My work laptop also has Portable KeePass that accesses the database via WebDAV to my server.
This is what I did. Once Firefox did something and wiped my passwords from sync only way I got them back was I had an old laptop I didn’t use often that was synced to my account. Now I use keepass that’s saved locally and a backup on my nas & flashdrive.
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This. And to add to what other commenters have said, by using Bitwarden and paying for their Premium plan (very cheap, just $10/year), even if you don't use all their features, you're supporting a good project. It's critical infrastructure, I think the price is more than fair.
Either way, you should always make periodic backups from any cloud service you use, encrypted of course.just $10/
monthyear -
just $10/
monthyearYes! Oh my, I'm silly; that was precisely my point and I managed to mess it up
Thank you for the correction!
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It never made sense to me to put password managers in the cloud. Regards to what you intend it to do, you’re making it accessible to a wider audience than necessary. And yet, I’m using iCloud. It’s time for a change.
I’m thinking of just running a locally hosted password manager on my home server and letting my devices sync with it somehow when I’m at home. I have a VPN into my home network when I’m away that automatically triggers when I leave the house, so even that’s not that big an issue, but I’m really not familiar with what’s gonna cleanly integrate with all my stuff and be easy to use. All I know is I wanna kill the cloud functionality of my setup.
I already have a jellyfish server so I figured I would just throw this onto that. Any suggestions?
If you've been using passkeys, you'll need to generate new ones when you switch. AFAIK, they aren't exportable from Google or Apple. Which, among other reasons, is why I'll just stick to high-entropy passwords. I've had some sites like Amazon try to sneakily make me register passcodes, I've had to go back and tear them out before they screw me somehow.
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I look at it like this:
- I don't absolutely trust the security of my server. Sure, it hasn't had a breach.....yet, but that possibility is inevitable, given the amount of bots that keep trying to get in by the minute. It's secure, yes, but is it secure enough to entrust the keys to my bank account, my business ventures, et al? IF somebody got the key to my Lemmy account, it would be bothersome, but not cataclysmic since all online accounts are silo'd with only a couple that are linked.
- Bitwarden spent a lot of time and money building a large infrastructure that is, imho, far more secure than my little server. Bitwarden has a pretty good track record. They have had some vulnerabilities, even as recent as '23 but these have been remediated.
- Confirmation bias...I've been using Bitwarden for untold years now and have never had an issue, other than the recent UI theming schema that was so castigated by users that they offered a way to switch back.
While hosting my own password manager would fit right in with the rest of my selfhosting, I think sometimes it's better to defer to more secure options when dealing with highly sensitive data.
Bitwarden is absolutely solid,yes.
Local server wise: If OP uses it in a local only setup behind a proper VPN implementation from my point of view the risk is acceptable.
It's not that hard to secure a home server in a way that Vaultwarden is not at risk - and when you're so compromised that it is, then the attacker can easily use other vectors to gain the same data (RAt,keyloggers, etc.) -
Is the data super important to you?
Let someone else host it.
Bitwarden in the cloud.Edit: Bitwarden paying the monthly/yearly fee to BW. I wasn’t implying trying to host it yourself in the cloud.
Passwords are one I happily pay for someone else to worry about
That’s about my most valuable digital data
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Agreed. Unless your setup and security practices is flawless, I think passwords are better managed by specialists paid for it.
Your security will never be flawless. Human nature is to slip up every once and a while, and security is an ever evolving game of cat and mouse and even the professionals who spend their entire careers defending infrastructure are constantly playing catch-up.
I would never host my passwords locally because I know my security at home is nowhere near the security of a professional platform, especially one as trusted as Bitwarden. My dumb family photos and personal git repo? Sure. But Bitwarden holds passwords to my bank, government websites, work stuff, my credit cards, etc.
Waaay too much risk for me, and if anyone is looking at this i would recommend that you seriously consider what kind of liability you are really bringing on.
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If just one or those passwords gets leaked you might find a lot of other ones get cracked as well.
It may not be sites that you care about. But using a password manager is a lot less effort and a lot safer than whatever technique the average Joe will come up with.
Any password that leaks which could indicate a potential system ( e.g.: sitename in lower/upper/leetspeak) makes the whole thing even more vulnerable.
Just use something. Bitwarden, vault warden, keepassxc, ...
Knowing my social circle I'd recommend bitwarden. Even paying for it costs a measly 10$/year, while the free version is very usable in itself. And generating passphrases or 32char passwords will be a lot safer than whatever the hell they can come up with.
Just avoid the default browser ones, big tech and LastPass.
just use something
This! I am an IT admin and inam constantly begging my coworkers to use a password manager, any password manager. My company will pay for you to use Bitwarden but if you don't want to do that at least use the password manager built into chrome/edge. Please, I am begging you to use secure passwords and save them in a password manager.
(Obviously not you fellow Lemmy users I'm sure y'all have too notch security practices. Just venting lol)
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Any iOS app?
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If you've been using passkeys, you'll need to generate new ones when you switch. AFAIK, they aren't exportable from Google or Apple. Which, among other reasons, is why I'll just stick to high-entropy passwords. I've had some sites like Amazon try to sneakily make me register passcodes, I've had to go back and tear them out before they screw me somehow.
wrote last edited by [email protected]try to sneakily make me register passcodes
Can you expand on this? I'm not sure what this means. Is it like instead of a full fledged password, just a four digit PIN or something? Thanks.
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Damn, that sounds very interesting! The use of a Keepass DB instead of a new one makes it great to have as option. It's something I hadn't think about for a long time.
I'll check it out later and maybe install it after I restore my server, I'm planning to reduce my attack surface too:)
If you do, use the
-koption - it locks access to the rook service to only the user session. Rook works without it, but is more secure with it. -
try to sneakily make me register passcodes
Can you expand on this? I'm not sure what this means. Is it like instead of a full fledged password, just a four digit PIN or something? Thanks.
For some reason, when I registered my phone number for delivery notifications, it made a passkey and registered it with my account. It never prompted me to save the passkey, so I had no idea where it was supposed to be used. I immediately deleted it because I was concerned I wasn't going to be able to log in if I logged out without knowing what that passkey was and had it in my password manager.
