I’m going to move away from lastpass because the user experience is pretty fucking shit. I was going to look at 1pass as I use it a lot at work and so know it. However I have heard a lot of praise for BitWarden and VaultWarden on here and so probably going to try them out first.
My questions are to those of you who self-host, firstly: why?
And how do you mitigate the risk of your internet going down at home and blocking your access while away?
BitWarden’s paid tier is only $10 a year which I’m happy to pay to support a decent service, but im curious about the benefits of the above. I already run syncthing on a pi so adding a password manager wouldn’t need any additional hardware.
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I use KeePassXC its free works on what I use. The encrypted list of passwords is synced with my phone twice a day with Syncthing. Chrome had a fit with the android app to I switched to Firefox after. I selfhost it because it’s free and I know enough to troubleshoot any problems.
I use a KeePassXC database on a syncthing share and haven’t had any issues. You get synchronization and offline access, and even if there are sync conflicts, the app can merge the two files.
One benefit to hosted password vaults over files is that they can use 2FA - you can’t exactly do TOTP with a static file.
(As an aside, I wish more “self hosted” apps were instead “local file and sync friendly” apps instead, exactly because of offline access)
You can do 2FA with Keepass, just not TOTP. Add a key file or a hardware key on top of your master password and you pass “something that you have and something that you know” test
KeepassXC handles TOTP.
It can generate TOTP codes, but I’m saying that the vault itself can’t be secured with TOTP.
Then the difference is really that someone else is handing the security, right? At the end of the day, there’s an encrypted file somewhere, and a TOTP only protects a particular connection by network.
Sure, but there’s a big difference between a vault copied and synced on all of my mobile devices that I could easily lose versus only on a server behind locked doors.
Keepass hosted on my Nextcloud server. You can have the database synced to however many devices you want, and each one will always have a local copy of the latest version. You can use whatever sync solution you want though: syncthing, Dropbox, google drive etc. I suggest using diceware to generate a strong master passphrase for the database :)
I do exactly this, and use Keepass2Android on my phone and have nextcloud-KeeWeb installed.
Tangentally related - For anyone looking to take over a project, KeeWeb is looking for a new maintainer!
Yeah. I use KeepassXC on my computers and KeepassDX on my phone. All synced with syncthing and it works great.
Bitwarden also syncs a local copy to every device it connects to.
This is the way. It’s also one of the simplest self-hosted setups you can have. Highly recommend it.
If you self host bitwarden/vaultwarden, each client stores an encrypted copy of the database, so even if your server was completely destroyed, you’d still have access to all the accounts you’re saving in it.
Regarding benefits for the paid tier (which I use as a sort of donation):
- it’s literally on their page: https://bitwarden.com/help/password-manager-plans/#compare-personal-plans
- What I actually use: A bit of the encrypted upload, some 2FA generators for unimportant services (I prefer using another 2FA app with encrypted automated backups. Helps keeping things separate)
Regarding self-hosting:
I decided against it.- Too much important stuff in there (+400 accounts)
- Too much stuff in there I would need to back up and keep safe. Not in the mood.
- Not enough experience with hosting a database. If it would go belly-up I had no one except the internet to ask and figure it out myself. At best some selfhost forum/community.
I think you misread my post. I know what the benefits of their paid teir are, because literally read their page.
I was asking why people self host. As you don’t self host…I’m not sure why you’re responding, especially not with passive aggressive language like that.
Didnt feel passive aggresive to me.
And regarding the question why people self host:
More or less the usual reasons (e.g. learning, just4fun, experimenting)
And I gave you the reasons why I decided against it.Do with both informations what you need to do. Keeping it in mind or disregard my opinion/choices as not directly answering your question
I don’t understand it tbh. Password managers and email are the main things I avoid self hosting. Email because it’s just too easy to fuck something up and never realize you’re not actually properly sending/receiving email. And password managers because if I lose access to it, I’m kinda royally fucked. And the password managers I use keeps a local copy of your database that gets periodically updated, so even without internet I do still have access.
Could one not theoretically self-host a PW manager that also keeps a local copy of the database for times with no internet?
Idk if that doesn’t exist yet or what, and there are plenty of other reasons against self-hosting a PW manager but that seems like a logical work-around for that particular problem. Keep your access when the internet is down, and keep your data out of third party control.
Bitwarden does exactly that. It will mostly work with no server connection.
Absolutely, in fact I’d be willing to bet vaultwarden does just that. That’s a good point.
Yep, it does!
I self-Host Vaultwarden at home, this way I have a convenient password manager for myself and my SO, it’s easy to setup and maintain. East to access from the phone, Firefox, etc. Bitwarden app keeps a local cache so even when disconnected from the server I have access to my passwords and it will synchronize at the next connections. I otherwise have a Wireguard VPN setup in case I need to connect to my home server from outside my home.
Before I used KeePass+syncthing but it was to much configuration to convince my SO to use it. Bitwarden/Vaultwarden was more successful in that regard.
If a FOSS project provides easy self hosting but also a paid hosting I usually go for that to support the project and gain something at the same time. Not only for password managers but any service.
I use KeepassXC
I selfhost vault warden, and in all honesty, it’s just painless. I do reverse proxy it, but you could also just setup wireguard or Tailscale at home and keep it even more secure that way.
The reason I chose to selfhost is because I want to be in as much control as possible of my data. I chose Vault warden because it’s fully featured and super easy to deploy the server, ridiculously so.
Now,if anyone was to ask me if they should selfhost Bitwarden or just use their hosted service, I’d suggest to take the second option, for 2 reasons:
1.- it’s even easier and just works 2.- if you choose the paid tier it has some nice features and you help the project stay alive
I switched from Lastpass to 1Pass and it was pretty miserable. I then swtiched to Bitwarden. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than LP and 1Pass.
The reason you’d want to self-host is so that nobody has access to your data but you. “The cloud” is just someone elses computer"
Bitwarden does external audits with reports and stores in zero knowledge storage.
Loose your master password and you are fucked. They can’t restore it even if you pay them a million €That was basically the same claim LP made. Even if true, if you have a bad master password, you can be compromised. While yes, that’s on you, your data is a high priority target in a centralized password store… if you host it yourself, someone would first have to know you had that data to even target you for that. Much less exposure hosting it yourself. The convenience factor and potentially less security than a company hosting passwords have, so it’s kind of a six of one, half dozen of the other.
Fair points.
Considering bitwarden is zero knowledge the data in itself is for now ‘safe’ enough to me.
Though I could be subject to IP/vulnerability scans on my home connection or accidentaly forwarding stuff that puts the security at risk and getting compromised (Seriously…The stuff I could connect and control via VNC I found on shodan was very creepy and frightening).
Nah mate. Plus maintaining the data I already have is enough for me. Bitwarden would be way too much. But maybe in the future once I figure Linux and docker more out :)
Im curious what makes it better than 1pass? Ive used a few of these, and my experience with 1pass was probably the best. Well, except for the price…
You’ll learn pretty quickly that a large chunk of self-hosting people are the types that are just terrified of having things be outside their control, which by extension means they are terrified of other people that aren’t them running infrastructure. 🫠
True but also free service and fun to play with.
The learning aspect is the big one for me. If you need a reliable service with no time spent learning or troubleshooting, you’re probably better using a paid service.
But also, there are significant potential savings and advantages for data storage at home.
And at 10€ per year I’ll gladly pay that. Now if it was 10€ per month and almost bi-yearly increasing, because why not, I’d quickly reconsider taking the risk and responsibility of self-hosting the door to my internet- and reallife existence.
I store everything in there. Banking, health, shopping, etc etc. Not worth it exposing it without knowing how much I expose.
The things I currently expose are relatively low-risk.
Firefox has a built in password manager, it is stored on each machine you sync. But to anwer your question any cloud stored data is vulnerable, so be sure your password manager supports other verification measures such as Yubikey as another factor of authentication
I’ve used cloud based services for password managers for work and “self host” my personal stuff. I barely consider it self hosting since I use Keepass and on every machine it’s configured to keep a local cached copy of the database but primarily to pull from the database file on my in-home NAS.
Two issues I’ve had:
Logging into an account on a device currently not on my home network is brutal. I often resort to simply viewing the needed password and painstakingly type it in (and I run with loooooong passwords)
If I add or change a password on a desktop and don’t sync my phone before I leave, I get locked out of accounts. Two years rocking this setup it’s happened three times, twice I just said meh I don’t really need to do this now, a third time I went through account recovery and set a new password from my phone.
Minor complaint:
Sometimes Keepass2Android gets stuck trying to open the remote database and I have to let it sit and timeout (5 minutes!!!) which gets really annoying but happens very infrequently which is why I say just minor complaint
All in all, I find the inconvenience of doing the personal setup so low that to me even a $10 annual subscription is not worth it
Consider shortening your passwords. Random passwords longer than 20 characters is a complete waste of time.
To me 16 is long haha.
I usually end up running with 16 characters since a lot of services reject longer than 20 and as a programmer I just like it when things are a power of two. Back in the Dark Times of remembering passwords my longest was 13 characters so when I started using a password manager setting them that long felt wild to me.
I do have my bank accounts under a 64 character password purely because monkey brain like seeing big security rating in keepass. Entropy go brrrrrrrrrrrr
Haha, yeah 16 is actually pretty long.
I guess I’m just used to being forced 16 characters long passwords at long.
Appreciate your perspective thanks for sharing.
The way I get around the syncing issue is to set my syncthing to sync when my phone is charging so it’s very unlikely to not be in sync, or if I change a password on the PC I’ll plug my phone into a USB and it syncs straight away.
I also use KeepassDX on Android and never have those issues.
Premium features for free. There are no benefits in relying on a third-party
Well ‘no benefits’ is a bit of a stretch.
Do you mean 2nd party? If not, what is the 3rd party in this situation?
If you do mean 2nd party - you should have a read through this thread, tonnes of benefit to buying these services.
