Struggling to understand the different passwords

[maxime1992]

Hello,

as usual for my first issue on a repo that I like, thanks a lot for all the effort put into Kopia 🙏! I'm trying to migrate from Duplicati and while I love Duplicati, the fact that it hasn't been maintained for a while and the speed is also really not that good, I've been looking at Kopia, gave it a go and was fairly happy with it :). I'm intending to make a permanent switch.

That said, I just can't wrap my head around the server-password argument 🤔.
Is this used only to log into the UI? Or something else? I've read the doc, I've read this issue as well #2370 but it just doesn't click for me...

I did setup Kopia recently on a machine using Docker Compose and it was going great, until I restarted the container. The next time, the container was failing with the following logs:

Server will allow connections from users whose accounts are stored in the repository.
User accounts can be added using 'kopia server user add'.

ERROR unable to initialize repository: unable to initialize repository: error opening repository: get password: password prompt error: inappropriate ioctl for device
Enter password to open repository: 
Server will allow connections from users whose accounts are stored in the repository.
User accounts can be added using 'kopia server user add'.

ERROR unable to initialize repository: unable to initialize repository: error opening repository: get password: password prompt error: inappropriate ioctl for device
Enter password to open repository: 
Server will allow connections from users whose accounts are stored in the repository.
User accounts can be added using 'kopia server user add'.

and the ERROR block repeating a lot more than the 2 I've pasted there. I don't understand as I haven't changed my server password.

As I don't understand the difference between the server password and the repository password, I may be doing dumb things. My understanding is the following:

• server password: Used to log into the UI
• repository password: The password used to encrypt a given backup

So I've used one password for the server password, and then from the UI when I created the repository and the backup, I gave a different password. Based on this comment, maybe I should've used the same?

I've only made one backup that was about 80gb... So if I have to start over I guess I could but it doesn't reassure me as how reliable the whole system is for me. I'm sure it's just a bad understanding on my side so hopefully it can be fixed.

I've tried setting the server password to the one I've used at the repository password, but no luck I still get an error.

So question 1: Can someone explain in a different way than what's written in the doc the difference between the server password and the repository password?

Question 2: Can I do something to not have the error I'm currently getting or do I have to start everything over?

Thanks!

[lupusA]

Hi,

basically you set a environment variable to tell the container which password is used to connect to the repository. After starting the container, it will connect to the repository (probably the last repository which was connected).

As you have given a different password in the web-ui you have to change the environment variable to match it.
The server password is used to log into the web-ui.

Nothing is lost. Just change the environment variable to match the password you have provided when you created the repository.

Hope it helps.

Cheers,

[lupusA]

@maxime1992

Can we close this issue?