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?
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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.
This
x10
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
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.
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.
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.
Sandpass on sandstorm
It’s dated, but phenomenal (and secure)
I use GNU pass synced through an internal Gitea. Have wireguard to sync remotely. Works pretty good, I would recommend not setting an expiration on the key, the git history keeps the old encryption anyways.
This is the way to go… though I’ve moved from pass to go pass which is basically the same thing but written in go and looks to be better maintained… also moved from gitea to forgejo since I think gitea has had some maintainer changes over the last couple of years that may not have been in the spirit of remaining fully FOSS
Why not use KeepassXC? It’s a completely local encrypted db but it integrates with cloud storage apps like nextcloud for sync. It has plugins for integration with Firefox and KeepassAndroid is pretty smooth on the current Android OS.
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:)
Yup this is the way. The resulting .kdbx database file is encrypted so you can even synchronize it over an untrusted provider. Otherwise you can use something like syncthing to keep it strictly peer to peer.
this one, OP. no need to introduce the horror that’s a:
- hosted app (why?!)
- client app is electron crapware
- the client app doesn’t even have full functionality, you have to use the web UI for some tasks
edit: I’m obviously speaking about the bitwarden/vaultwarden horror. keepassXC is none of them things.
KeepassXC is the only thing that makes sense to me.
I don’t want all my passwords stored with some huge target like lastpass or bitwarden.
Encrypted local (and synced) DB is the only way.
Bitwarden/vaultwarden is a popular option for selfhosters.
I do this. Plus VPN to have access to passwords when away from home network
I use keepass (KeepassXC on desktop, KeepassDX on Android but I’m sure there is an IOS client too) I sync the database between all my devices and my server (hub and spoke) with Syncthing
I also use KeepassXC and Synthing together and I am very happy with this combination.
One tip that I have, if you are worried about the security of the database file being shared, is to get 2 Yubikeys and use these, along with a strong passphrase, to protect the database file.
theres also the option of using a “key file” with Keepass, which can be any file, an mp3, an ebook or whatever, and then you select that file when youre entering your password. so as well as someone trying to brute force your password they also have to guess what key file youre using, which would be next to impossible if you had a folder full of hundreds of files
Same boat for me, works great! I got the NFC Yubikeys which work fine with Android.
I’ve been using various versions of keepass for ever. Until recently I had the database on Google drive. It’s now local and sync’d with syncthing. It’s a bit “different”, but once you get used to it, it works very well.
Been usingthe same setup for years as well and Im happy with it, never had any issues with it
Is the data super important to you?
Let someone else host it.
Bitwarden in the cloud.
This. And to add to what other commenters have said, by using Bitwarden and paying for their Premium plan (very cheap, just $10/month), 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.Agreed. Unless your setup and security practices is flawless, I think passwords are better managed by specialists paid for it.
This is how I view password managers too, even though I have my home server backing up
+1 to this; Time spent on your setup is an important factor too.
The more important your data is, the more time you are going to need to spend maintaining your system to ensure security, backups and fail-overs. Not everyone has luxurious amount of time to spend on their home-lab everyday.
I did self-host bitwarden and it’s not that bad to keep updated and running after initial setup (including backups obviously) but it still requires some time and effort to keep it running. And as I was the only user for the service it just wasn’t worth the time spent for me (YMMV) so I switched to their EU servers and I’ve been a happy user ever since.
What I should do is to improve local backps on that, currently I just export my data every now and then manually to a secured storage, but doing it manually means that there’s often too long time between exports.
just have 1 password for everything, problem solved.
Well, not wrong that it solves the problem, but with data breaches happening frequently, I wouldn’t want to repeat 1 single password for all services lol.
Even if companies hash passwords, it’s still a gamble whether they are using an up-to-date hash algorithm (or if they do even hash it, lol). Plus, generally best to avoid exposing passwords, hashed or not, in the first place.
I was being facetious. Every site has multiple special requirements to make your password
strongerweaker, the odds of being able to use a single one are slim even if you where dumb enough to try.I do this for sites where I don’t care at all about security. One minor tip, that will protect against automated attacks if the password is cracked, is to add part of the website name into the password (e.g “mystrongp4ss!lemworld”) .
A human could easily crack it, but automated systems that replay the password on different sites would probably not bother to calculate the pattern.
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.
I don’t really see the problem with having the password manager in the cloud if it is protected by 2FA. I tried vaultwarden (self hosted) about a year ago and the showstopper was that I couldn’t store a new password when off LAN or without first connecting the VPN. I am sure there are on demand vpn type services, but it was clunky. It would have been great it if would work locally on the phone then sync the password to the vault when it came back online
Self hosting a password manager is great, but be sure to read up on keeping it secure, and don’t store anything important in it until you have working, tested backup solution. And re-test it frequently in a non-destructive way.
If you lose your password storage to a disk failure or something, you’re gonna be hurting for a while.
If you’re happy with how Apple Password works for you, I can recommend StrongBox. It keeps all data in a KeePass2 database and integrates into Apple’s AutoFill API. That means it feels almost native when using it. No browser plugin needed. (At least not for Safari.) And you can decide how you sync the database file.
