qubes-pass/README.md

Inter-VM Pass password manager for Qubes OS

This is a very simple password management system that lets you securely store passwords in a compartment fully isolated from your other compartments.

It accomplishes this feat by by leveraging both the excellent pass program, and Qubes OS IPC to isolate the actual password store — and the master password for the store — from the environments where you may use the passwords in the store.

With this program, you can store and retrieve passwords between VMs without having to grant any of the VMs any special policy privileges other than access to the Qubes services implemented here.

Using the software

These instructions assume you have installed the software. See the Installing the software heading below for more information.

Step 1: decide which VM you'll use to manage passwords, and which VM you'll use to store passwords in.

In the password manager VM, create the file /rw/config/pass-split-domain and add the name of the password store VM as the first and only line of the file.

Now, from the password manager VM, run the command:

qvm-pass init

This step will create the necessary GPG keys and password store database in the password store VM. You'll receive a Qubes policy prompt asking you whether to allow your password manager VM to access ruddo.PassManage — it is safe to say yes. You will then receive a password prompt from GPG, confirming the creation of the key and the password that, in the future, will be used to encrypt and access the password store.

Note: don't forget to back your password store VM up regularly!

At this point, you are ready to list, insert and run other operations in your password store VM. list and get operations will use the service ruddo.PassRead, while management operations will use the service ruddo.PassManage, which allows you to set different policies for different VMs based on what you want these VMs to be able to do with the password store VM.

Run qvm-pass -? on a terminal to get usage information.

Installing the software

There are three components for this software:

• The client qvm-pass-client you install in the VMs (or their templates) where you want to manage your passwords.
• The service qvm-pass-service you install in the VMs (or their templates) where you want to store your passwords.
• The policy qvm-pass-dom0 is the dom0 side of things, necessary to enable the services and control access from the clients to the service.

First, build the software, After cloning this repository on a suitable VM, run the command:

make rpm

This will generate three installable packages on the local directory:

• qvm-pass-client-<version>.noarch.rpm
• qvm-pass-service-<version>.noarch.rpm
• qvm-pass-dom0-<version>.noarch.rpm

Copy the qvm-pass-client-<version>.noarch.rpm file to the template VM or standalone VM where you plan to manage passwords. Install the RPM with dnf install <name of the RPM>. At this point, this VM, as well as any VMs using this as a template, have gained the ability to list and store passwords stored in other VMs.

Now copy the qvm-pass-service-<version>.noarch.rpm file to the template VM or standalone VM where you plan to store passwords. Install the RPM with dnf install <name of the RPM>. At this point, this VM, as well as any VMs using this as a template, have gained the ability to securely store passwords in /home/user/.password-store.

Now copy the qvm-pass-policy-dom0-<version>.noarch.rpm file to your dom0. At this point, the default policy (ask) is active on your Qubes OS system, and you can begin using the client.

Those clever among you will have discovered that there is a Makefile included, and that you can use the Makefile to install the software on other non-RPM templates. I welcome pull requests to add support for other distro packages and Qubes OS templates.

Troubleshooting and debugging

As always, you can file new issues on the repo of this project for help with fixing bugs that the programs may have. Pull requests also welcome.