A secure password manager for UNIX (Linux, BSD) that can be used conviniently from the command line.
I prefer the command line over the GUI, and the lack of password managers that serve this use case, motivated me to write my own. It also comes with a browser extension in order to conviniently but securely fill out logins on the web.
A package is available from the author's PPA, which can be installed by running following commands (as root):
apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys CD42F3B2E1285F2F
add-apt-repository ppa:s.noack/ppa
apt-get update
apt-get install mypass
Make sure you have Python 3 and SQLCipher installed. Then run following command (optionally as root for system-wide installation):
pip3 install mypass
In order to enable completion of subcommands, contexts and usernames in Bash, add the following line to your ~/.bashrc or in a new file in /etc/bash_completion.d/ (if available, for system-wide configuration):
eval "$(register-python-argcomplete --no-defaults mypass)"
For enabling completion in Zsh, Tcsh and Fish please refer to the argcomplete documentation.
In order to allow the browser extension to communicate with the host application,
please run the following commands, replacing <vendor> and <manifest-dir>
with the respective values from the table below:
mkdir -p <manifest-dir>
ln -s -t <manifest-dir> $(python3 -c 'import mypass, os; print(os.path.dirname(mypass.__file__))')/native-messaging-hosts/<vendor>/*
vendor |
manifest-dir (system-wide) |
manifest-dir (per-user) |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Firefox | mozilla | /usr/lib/mozilla/native-messaging-hosts | ~/.mozilla/native-messaging-hosts |
| Google Chrome | chrome | /etc/opt/chrome/native-messaging-hosts | ~/.config/google-chrome/NativeMessagingHosts |
| Chromium | chrome | /etc/chromium/native-messaging-hosts | ~/.config/chromium/NativeMessagingHosts |
If you want to load the extension in Firefox, please run the following commands,
replacing <prefix> with /usr/share for system-wide installation (root required),
or replace <prefix> with ~ for per-user installation, then restart Firefox:
mkdir -p <prefix>/mozilla/extensions/{ec8030f7-c20a-464f-9b0e-13a3a9e97384}
ln -s $(python3 -c 'import mypass, os; print(os.path.dirname(mypass.__file__))')/extension <prefix>/mozilla/extensions/{ec8030f7-c20a-464f-9b0e-13a3a9e97384}/mypass@snoack.addons.mozilla.org
For Chromium-based browsers, you can install the extension from the Chrome Web Store.
When you run most of the commands below, you will be prompted for the passhprase to decrypt/encrypt the credentials with. If the encrypted file doesn't exist yet, it will be created when you store any credentials for the first time. By default, a daemon is spawned and shuts down after 30 minutes of inactivity, so that you don't have to enter your passphrase again when performing multiple actions within that period.
Stores credentials for the given context.
The context can be any unique keyword which you relate to these credentials. But if the credentials are for a website, it is recommended to use the corresponding domain as context, so that the browser extension finds the credentials, see below.
The username is optional, but specifying a username if there is any, allows you to store multiple username/password pairs for the same context. Also, if a username is given, it will be used by the browser extension when filling out web forms.
If password is omitted you will be prompted for the password. Passing the password on the command line is NOT recommeded, except for import scripts, as it will end up in your shell's history.
Same as mypass add, but stores a new random secure password and prints it.
Prints the credentials for the given context.
Prints each context (one per line) that any credentials have been stored for.
In order to filter the list, just pipe the output to programs like grep.
Deletes credentials from the encrypted storage. If username is given, only this username and the associated password is removed. If username is omitted, the whole context is wiped.
Moves credentials around within the encrypted storage.
Renaming a context:
mypass rename --new-context=new.example.com old.example.com
Changing the username for example.com from john to rose:
mypass rename --new-username=rose example.com john
Adding a username to a password which has been stored without an associated username:
mypass rename --new-username=rose example.com
Creates a new context that refers to the credentials of an existing context.
Changes to the credentials performed under either context will be reflected when looking up the credentials for the other context. Removing either context doesn't remove the credentials as long as the other context exists.
Prompts you for a new passphrase. Existing credentials are re-encrypted using this passphrase.
Forces the daemon to immediately shutdown, if it is running, so that you'd have to enter the passphrase again, from now on.
Optionally, you can create a config file under ~/.config/mypass/config.ini,
in order to override any of the following presets:
[daemon]
# Minutes of inactivity after which the daemon shuts down, and you have
# to enter the passphrase, the credentials are encrypted with, again.
timeout = 30
# Path to log file any excpetions thrown by the daemon are written to.
logfile = ~/.config/mypass/log
[database]
# Path to the encrypted file storing the credentials.
path = ~/.config/mypass/db
[password]
# Length of newly generated passwords.
length = 16If you installed mypass on Debian/Ubuntu from the PPA above, next time you
start Chromium or Firefox, the extension should be active. If you installed
mypass by other means see above how to install the browser extension.
Note that while the browser extension is optional, it cannot be used standalone
but requires the command line utility to be installed as well.
The extension adds a button to the browser bar that when clicked, fills out login
forms in the active tab, if the document's domain and path (partially) match the
context of any stored credentials. If the document's URL is https://www.example.com/foo/bar
for example, credentials from following contexts are considered, in this order:
www.example.com/foo/barwww.example.com/foowww.example.comexample.com
The browser extension is intentionally kept simple and doesn't provide functionality to manage credentials. Please use the command line utility therefore.