Vim as a Password Manager

All passwords are stored in ~/.passwords. It looks like this:

# Twitter
      stakodiak
      mypassword1
      
      # Co-op Bank
      example@email.com
      very_secure_password_1
      
      # AT&T
      example@email.com
      my_awesome_password
      PIN: 11235
      
      # IRS
      email@example.com
      passwords_rule
      address: 1600 Penn. Ave
      ...

Generating passwords

Every website has its own idiosyncratic rules on password requirements, so there’s no one-size-fits-all generation method. Using openssl, I can typically meet the more onerous requirements:

$ openssl rand -base64 24
      e0wqUUf+8RK+yf31WZ9r1F23yodJI+cO

How to access passwords

I use a simple shell alias to access to the file:

alias pm='vim -c "set viminfo= nobackup nowritebackup noundofile noswapfile" ~/.passwords'

Then I just type pm wherever I am in my terminal to access my passwords.

Encrypting the file

A few notes. When I created the file, I encrypted it using Vim’s :X command. This way, as opposed to passing the -x CLI argument, I am only prompted for my password once each time I access the file. This means I could potentially wipe my data if I were to misenter my password and then save the garbled data. Second, I added set viminfo= nobackup ... in the alias to avoid storing my passwords in Vim’s plaintext swap and backup files. Third, I used the blowfish2 encryption method by executing set cm=blowfish2 in Vim when I created the file.

Backing up my data

Since my passwords are stored in one file, I can easily keep it synced with a remote source.

I sync this file to an S3 bucket (and periodically to an offline hard drive) to make sure my data is safe in case of a hardware catastrophe.

Et voila. An easy and secure password manager.

All code is on GitHub.

Questions? Good pizza recipe? Email me at alexander@computer.org.