Title: Password management in the terminal done right.
Author: paco
Date: 2017-07-16
Type: article

_Update_: Some time ago I wrote a little more detailed intro to `pass` on the
[tilde.institute wiki][2]

I spend most of my time in front a computer in the terminal ... I'm used
to it, and I like it a lot.  There's nothing (well, almost nothing) a
terminal app or a combination of apps can't do (way better some times
that its graphical counterparts).

One of those apps that's particularly useful is [pass][1]. A password
manager for the terminal.

Is quite simple. It creates a hierarchy of folders and files in
`$PASSWORD_STORE_DIR` (`~/.password-store` by default) and encrypts them with
your GPG key.

It can copy the recovered passwords to the clipboard, has `bash` and
`zsh` completion. Can generate random passwords for you and more ...

You can also create multi-line _stores_ with extra information, but just
the first line will be copied to the clipboard when you use `-c`.

They have a great web page explaining all that, and a really good man
page, so there's no excuse to have ugly methods for managing your
passwords ... or no methods at all !

The things I use the most:

    pass -c site/foo.com/username

This one gets the password for `username@foo.com` and puts it on your
clipboard.

    pass generate  -c email/me@foo.com

This one generates a random password, stores it on `email/me@foo.com`
and copies it to the clipboard. Pretty useful when you're singing in to
a new service.

    pass edit foo/bar/baz

This one edits one of your entries.  Mind that generate won't ask for
password, as you're encrypting to your GPG public key, but edit or show
will.  It's a good idea to have GPG agent setup, so you can control
how/when passwords are requested.

[1]: https://www.passwordstore.org/
[2]: https://wiki.tilde.institute/w/pass