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.
Because when whatever company gets a data breach I don’t want my data in the list.
With bitwarden If your server goes down then all your devices still have a local copy of your database you just can’t add new passwords until the server is back up.
Pretty much this. Combined with how easy it is to install VaultWarden (docker ftw), it was a no brainer for me.
Also, my little home server is a WAY less juicy target for someone looking to steal and sell a bunch of passwords.
Been running it for probably about 2 years now. No ISP outages but a couple self-inflicted ones. Didn’t even notice the outages in the BitWarden app/extension.
This was also the most compelling reason for me to consider it.
I do think that balanced against the time and effort and risk of me fucking up outweighs this benefit. But I can totally see why for some that balance goes the other way.
I think the main thing for not messing it up is just make sure you keep it updated. Probably set up auto updates and auto backups.
More than any other piece of self-hosted software: backups are important if you’re going to host a password manager.
I have Borg automatically backing up most of the data on my server, but around once every 3 months or so, I take a backup of Vaultwardens data and put it on an external drive.
As long as you can keep up with that, or a similar process; there’s little concern to me about screwing things up. I’m constantly making tweaks and changes to my server setup, but, should I royally fuck up and say, corrupt all my data somehow: I’ve got a separate backup of the absolutely critical stuff and can easily rebuild.
But, even with the server destroyed and all backups lost, as long as you still have a device that’s previously logged into your password manager; you can unlock it and export the passwords to manually recover.
1Password’s security model guards against this. Even if they are breached, your passwords cannot be decrypted.
You are more likely to screw up your own backups and hosting security than they are.
LastPass said the exact same thing. I won’t be a big target like they will though.
LastPass doesn’t have your password, so it can’t be stolen during a breach.
But 1Password goes a step further, also requiring a “secret key”, which also can’t be stolen.
https://support.1password.com/secret-key-security/
Even if an attacker manages to steal your encrypted data from 1Password and also guess your master password, they still can’t access your data without a secret key.
For that reason, your 1Password account is more likely to compromised through your own device, not their server. And if your own devices are thoroughly compromised, no password manager can save you— the attacker can potentially grab all you type and see all you see.
Ok, but this doesn’t explain why you would choose to self-host VaultWarden rather than using BitWarden.
I use KeePassXC and use syncthing to sync the database to each devise I own. This way I always have the newest version if the database everywhere and don’t need to worry about Internet access at all.
This is what recommend as well. The various KeePasses all to pretty good jobs of merging databases, in case of sync conflicts, and you can utterly ignore whether you’re online or not. Plus, there’s a really fantastic tool, written by a veritable genius of a developer, that lets you use a KeePass DB as a secret service on your desktop.
You delicious bastard! Thanks for the rook tip.
But keepassxc already provides a secret service ootb?
KeePassXC can’t be run in headless mode, and the GUI is tightly coupled to the app. You have to have all of X installed, and have a display running, to run it.
Here’s the runtime dependencies of KeePassXC:
linux-vdso.so.1 libQt5Svg.so.5 libqrencode.so.4 libQt5Concurrent.so.5 libpcsclite.so.1 libargon2.so.1 libQt5Network.so.5 libQt5Widgets.so.5 libbotan-3.so.5 libz.so.1 libminizip.so.1 libQt5DBus.so.5 libusb-1.0.so.0 libQt5X11Extras.so.5 libQt5Gui.so.5 libQt5Core.so.5 libX11.so.6 libstdc++.so.6 libm.so.6 libgcc_s.so.1 libc.so.6 /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 libgssapi_krb5.so.2 libproxy.so.1 libssl.so.3 libcrypto.so.3 libbz2.so.1.0 liblzma.so.5 libsqlite3.so.0 libdbus-1.so.3 libudev.so.1 libGL.so.1 libpng16.so.16 libharfbuzz.so.0 libmd4c.so.0 libsystemd.so.0 libdouble-conversion.so.3 libicui18n.so.75 libicuuc.so.75 libpcre2-16.so.0 libzstd.so.1 libglib-2.0.so.0 libxcb.so.1 libkrb5.so.3 libk5crypto.so.3 libcom_err.so.2 libkrb5support.so.0 libkeyutils.so.1 libresolv.so.2 libpxbackend-1.0.so libgobject-2.0.so.0 libcap.so.2 libGLdispatch.so.0 libGLX.so.0 libfreetype.so.6 libgraphite2.so.3 libicudata.so.75 libpcre2-8.so.0 libXau.so.6 libXdmcp.so.6 libcurl.so.4 libgio-2.0.so.0 libduktape.so.207 libffi.so.8 libbrotlidec.so.1 libnghttp3.so.9 libnghttp2.so.14 libidn2.so.0 libssh2.so.1 libpsl.so.5 libgmodule-2.0.so.0 libmount.so.1 libbrotlicommon.so.1 libunistring.so.5 libblkid.so.1
I don’t know why it links to a systemd library. Here are the runtime dependencies of rook:
linux-vdso.so.1 libresolv.so.2 libc.so.6 /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2
Don’t get me wrong: KeePassXC is one of my favorite programs. But don’t leave it running all the time, and it can’t be run on headless systems.
I see, thanks for explaining. So IIUC, rook is intended for headless systems?
I use it for everything, but then, I wrote it. All of the desktop secret service tools have desktop dependencies (Gnome’s uses Gnome libraries, KDE’s pulls some KDE libraries) and run through DBUS; since I don’t use a DE, it’s a fair bit of unnecessary bloat. And I don’t like GUI apps that just hang around in the background consuming resources. I open KeePassXC when I need to make changes to the DB, and then I shut it down. Otherwise, it hangs out in my task bar, distracting me.
Rook is for people who want to run on headless systems, or want to minimize resources usage, or don’t use a desktop environment (such as Gnome or KDE), or don’t run DBUS, or don’t run systemd. It’s for people who don’t want a bunch of applications running in the background in their task bar. KeePassXC providing a secret service is great, but it’s overkill if that’s most of what it’s providing for you, most of the time.
I don’t think took is for everyone, or even for most people. It’s for people who like to live mostly in the command line, or even in VTs.
don’t need to worry about Internet access at all.
For what it’s worth, Bitwarden caches the database for offline use, so it works fine without internet access too. When you get internet access again, it’ll sync with the server.
This is the answer.
I use syncthing to sync between devices.
this is what I do as well, along with file staging so if I corrupt it by accident I don’t lose the entire DB
Currently I have it on my server as grab only, and then normal access on my clients with staging
Agreed with using keepass. If you’re one person accessing your passwords, there’s no reason you need a service running all the time to access your password db. It’s just an encrypted file that needs to be synced across devices.
However, if you make frequent use of secure password sharing features of lastpass/bitwarden/etc, then that’s another story. Trying to orchestrate that using separate files would be a headache. Use a service (even if self-hosted).
vaultwarden syncs your passwords locally so even if your server is down the passwords remain available on your device. And it is a wonderful password manager, you can share passwords with your family, have TOTPs, passkeys.
Fully agreed.
Accessing Vaultwarden through a VPN gives me peace of mind that it can’t be attacked.
Another great thing about Bitwarden is that it’s possible to export locally cached passwords to (encrypted) json/csv. This makes recovery possible even if all backups were gone.
A VPN? you still need a reverse proxy/domain to use it don’t you?
Yes, Bitwarden browser plugins require TLS, so I use DNS challenge to get a cert without an open port 80/443.
The domain points to a local IP, so I can’t access it without the VPN.
Having everything behind a reverse proxy makes it much easier to know which services are open, and I only need to open port 80/443 on my servers firewall.
DNS challenge? It is the 1st time I read about it.
I suppose in your LAN you need no VPNs then?
Yes.
You can forward a Wireguard port, exposing it to the internet.
Hmm, interesting, how would I start doing this?
I use a Synology NAS BTW, so it already gives me a Synology subdomain to mess around.
Accessing Vaultwarden through a VPN
Hmm maybe I should move mine to my VPN. Currently I have it publicly accessible so I can access it from systems where I can’t run other VPNs for security reasons (work systems). I use a physical token with FIDO2 (Yubikey) for two factor authentication though, so I’m not too worried about unauthorized access.
Vaultwarden is one of the few services I’d actually trust to be secure, so I wouldn’t worry if you update timely to new versions.
I hope it gets security audited one day, like Bitwarden was.
Because they use the official apps/web-vault, they don’t need to implement most of the vault/encryption features, so at least the actual data should be fine.
Security audits are expensive, so I don’t expect it to happen, unless some sponsor pays for it.
They have processes for CVEs and it seems like there wasn’t any major security issues (altough I wouldn’t host a public instance for unknown users).
That’s a good point. I didn’t consider the fact that all the encryption is done client-side, so that’s the most important part to audit (which Bitwarden has already done).
I have my Vaultwarden public so I can use it at work too, but my firewall blocks all external IPs except my work’s IP.
I’m self-hosting a VaultWarden install, and I’m doing it because uh, well, at this point I’ve basically ended up hosting every service I use online at this point.
Though, for most people, there’s probably no real reason to self-host their own password manager, though please stop using Lastpass because they’ve shown that they’re utterly incompetent repeatedly at this point.
Yeah I will likely move away.
My understanding with lastpass was that they had a breach but only encrypted data was stolen? What did I miss?
It was, IIRC, 3 separate breaches, plus a situation where the default KDF iterations on the vault was set to low as to actually make said encrypted data crackable.
The last I don’t really blame them for necessarily, but rather shows that they weren’t paying any attention to what their platform would actually protect against and what the threat landscape was and thus they never increased it and worse, when they did, they didn’t force older vaults to increase it because it would be mildly inconvenient to users.
Basically, just a poor showing of data stewardship and if there’s ONE thing you want your password manager to be good at, it’s that.
Yeah that tracks, tbh I had set mine higher so wasn’t an issue for me - but their UX, particularly on Android, is appalling.
Just curious, how do you host it? Do you have it containerized or no?
Yeah, I run everything in containers, minus a couple of things like the nginx install that’s doing reverse proxy work.
Password management is the one thing i don’t plan to self-host, on the grounds of not putting all my eggs in one basket. If something goes wrong and all my shit is fried or destroyed, I don’t want to also fuck around with account recovery for my entire digital existence.
Plus, if something is breached, im more likely to hear news about Bitwarden than I am about compromised server and/or client versions in a timeframe to actually be able to react to it.
That’s largely why I haven’t self hosted either. But problems can be mitigated:
- regular, automated backups to something else (say, KeePass), encrypted with your master pass and backed up off-site
- host your PW manager on a VPS, or have the VPS ready to deploy a snapshot from offsite backup
- change your master pass regularly - limits the kinds of breaches that can impact you
- randomize usernames - makes it easier to detect a breach, because you can see if any of those were exposed without the org being breached
But honestly, my main reason is that I don’t trust my server to stay up 100%, but I do expect Bitwarden to. I also trust their security audits.
I’m self hosting Vaultwarden and my home server got killed by the hurricane, yet I can still access my passwords just fine on the app because it stores them locally encrypted on my phone from the last time it synced. I just can’t update or change anything until I can bring everything back on.
So, host your own shit you cowards, it’ll be fine.
Bitwardens local cache does not include attachments, though. If you rely on them, you have to rely on the server being available.
I just… don’t see the benefit. I host videos so I can access video content even if my internet goes out, and it’s a lot cheaper than paying for streaming. I host my own documents because I don’t want big tech scraping all my data. I host my own budgeting software, again, because of privacy.
I could host Vaultwarden. I just don’t really see the point, especially when my SO and I have a shared collection, and if that broke, my SO would totally blame me, and I don’t think that’s worth whatever marginal benefits there are to self-hosting.
Maybe I’ll eat my words and Bitwarden will get hacked. But until then, stories like yours further confirm to me that not hosting it is better.
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.
My approach to this is as follows:
- the password manager is probably the most important and often used piece of software I own. We (wife and I share the vault) store everything important/private in there - bank details, hundreds of passwords, passport details, drivers licence etc. It is used many times a day by us both.
- Loss of control of this data would be catastrophic, so I took its security very seriously.
- No one company can be trusted with our data, because they all get hacked or make mistakes at some point.
I’m the security dude for a cloud service provider in my day job, so my goal was to use Separation of Concerns to manage my passwords. I therefore split the software from the storage, choosing software from one company, and storage from a second company. That way, it requires a failure on both parties at the same time for me to lose control of all the data.
I used to use OnePass for the software, storing the data in Dropbox. But then they removed that option, so I switched to Enpass. Data is stored in a vault on the local device and synced to a folder on Dropbox, which we both have access to from all our devices (Mac’s, iPads, iPhones). The vault is encrypted using our master password and Dropbox only sees an encrypted file. Enpass provides software that runs locally and doesn’t get a copy of my vault file.
If Dropbox has another failure and the vault gets out, then that is not a problem as long as Enpass have properly encrypted it. If Enpass has a bug making the vaults crackable - again it’s not a problem as long as Dropbox doesn’t lose control of my vault file. I update Enpass, the vault gets fixed and life goes on.
Enpass is very usable, but buggy. It crashes every night (requiring me to start it again and log in), and often loses connection to Safari and wont re-establish it. It got better with a previous update, but has got unreliable again. I’m about to look for another.
Cheers.
Loss of control of this data would be catastrophic, so I took its security very seriously.
Ask yourself: “If my current system is unavailable: How screwed am I?”
If the answer is anything less than “Not screwed at all!”, then it is time for a backup - regardless of what system you’re using or plan to use.
Fair comment, although due to the distributed nature of our implementation we are unlikely to lose services. All Vaults are stored locally on all devices.
Having said that - the copy of the vault on the Mac is backed up with TimeMachine.
[I’ve been a greybeard sysadmin and use 3,2,1 even at home]
A couple of questions
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How do you store a driver’s license in Bitwarden? Last time I checked they didn’t support file storage. Do you just put it in the cloud storage?
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Considering Bitwarden is E2EE, what would be the benefit of storing it at another company in case they are hacked?
Storing Drivers Licence: Was answered elsewhere. Bottom line… Bitwarden seems like it can store other types of data. Note that I don’t use Bitwarden yet, but have experience with Enpass and 1Pass, both of which can store all sorts of data.
Why separate storage if Bitwarden is E2EE? You are placing all your trust in a single organization - Bitwarden. If they get hacked, then it is possible for the hackers to poison their software to deliver master passwords (hacks of s/w repositories has happened). I prefer to separate encryption from storage so a hack in both is required to get my data. Note that I do the same for offsite backups to Glacier/S3. I use Arq to do the backup and encrypt the files, then send them to S3 for storage.
The 2023 IBM Report on Cost of Data Breeches indicated that the average time for a company to discover a breech is about 200 days, and on average another 70 days to remediate. That keeps me up at night in my day job as security dude.
I didn’t really consider the possibility of the client being compromised yet, good point.
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