Why Pass? Why not other password manager like KeePass, LastPass...?
- It's simple and lightweight.
- It uses existing tools like GnuPG, tree and Git.
- I can play with it through terminal. It looks cool 😌 😌
From official website:
Password management should be simple and follow Unix philosophy. With pass, each password lives inside of a gpg encrypted file whose filename is the title of the website or resource that requires the password. These encrypted files may be organized into meaningful folder hierarchies, copied from computer to computer, and, in general, manipulated using standard command line file management utilities.
pass is a simple password manager for the command line. Pass is a shell script that makes use of existing tools like GnuPG, tree and Git.
Nothing much to write here, install pass is quite simple. Just follow the official website, you can get it.
NOTE: To be able to use ass, set up GnuPG2 (Not GnuPG, please keep in mind)
For the first time, I've followed Pass man page like this:
$ pass init "Kien-Nguyen Password Storage"
# Return Password store initialized... Ha! gotcha, easy
$ pass insert Gmail/my-fancy-email
# Return gpg: Kien-Nguyen Password Storage: skipped: No public key
# gpg: [stdin]: encryption failed: No public key
# Uh oh what happened?
Double check man page, figure out that I have to use gpg-id, but I haven't had one yet.
$ gpg2 --list-keys
# Nothing....
To remedy this, let's create a GPG(2) key. Pass uses GnuPG2, which does not share its keyring with GnuPG. So remember to use gpg2 instead of gpg.
$ gpg2 --full-gen-key
# Follow the instruction
$ gpg2 --list-keys
/home/kiennt/.gnupg/pubring.kbx
-------------------------------
pub rsa2048/C8DC0750 2018-09-03 [SC]
uid [ unknown] Kien Nguyen Tuan <kiennt2609@gmail.com>
sub rsa2048/E5F492AB 2018-09-03 [E]
Now I have one GPG key with the ID C8DC0750. Re-initializing pass
pass init C8DC0750
pass insert Working/secret-thing
pass generate Working/secret-thing-2
pass Working/secret-thing
pass remove Working/secret-thing
# Enable management for local changes through Git
$ pass git init
# Add the remote git repository as 'origin'
$ pass git remote add origin path-or-link-to-git-repository-that-i-wont-tell-you
# Push your local Pass history
$ pass git push -u --all
Now you can use standard Git commands, prefixed by pass. For example: pass git push, pass git pull. Pass will automatically create commits when you use it to modify your password store.`