When it comes to password management, like most things I prefer simplicity. The pass library is a simple yet effective password management tool, consisting only of gpg encrypted text files. I started using it for a customer project, but the flexibility and simplicity of it attracted me for my own password management needs. This is a quick introduction that I wrote as I set this up for myself.
Installation
Ubuntu / Debian
CentOS / RHEL
Macintosh
Getting Started
A GPG key is required, so be sure you have one generated. If not, simple run:
The default option of RSA and RSA
is fine for most. It’s recommend to use 4096
for the maximum key size. The key can exist for any length of time, but the default has no expiration. Then finally enter your name and passphrase.
After the key is generated, you’ll need the GPG key ID in order to initialize the pass repository.
The output will look something like this where 3AA5C34371567BD2
is the ID you’re looking for:
From here you can initialize the password store with the following command:
Then initialize a git repository to store the passwords.
Now you can generate a new password with a set number of characters. In this example I’m using 15 characters.
You can insert an existing password.
Passwords can be organized into folders while creating or generating them as well.
And copying the password to your clipboard is as simple as:
There’s a lot more information available on the pass man page and I’ll follow up with more information as I integrate this into my routine. There are a lot of community driven features so far including a GUI, Android client, and much more. But tools like this are best when backed by a community customizing it to their needs, so maybe I’ll add something useful at some point.