3 Peter Palfrader, Alexander Wirt
10 The pws tool allows you to store passwords (or anything else, really) in
11 a set of encrypted files. Each file can be encrypted to a different set
12 of users. pws helps you with the bookkeeping of which keys to encrypt
13 each file to and provides a convinient wrapper to edit protected files.
15 In the intended use the directory with the encrypted passwords would be
16 under SCM control and shared with other people who need access.
21 First you need a file where your users and group are defined in. This
22 file is named .users. Lines consist of assignments of the form
23 <username> = <keyfingerprint>
25 @<groupname> = <username>|@<groupname> [, [<username>|@<groupname> ...]
27 Lines starting with a # are comments and thus get ignored.
29 --------------------------------
31 # This file needs to be gpg signed by a key whose fingerprint
32 # is listed in ~/.pws-trusted-users
34 formorer = 6E3966C1E1D15DB973D05B491E45F8CA9DE23B16
35 weasel = 25FC1614B8F87B52FF2F99B962AF4031C82E0039
36 @admins = formorer, weasel
38 zobel = 6B1856428E41EC893D5DBDBB53B1AC6DB11B627B
39 maxx = 30DC1D281D7932F55E673ABB28EEB35A3E8DCCC0
42 @all = @admins, @vienna
44 # gpg --clear .users && mv .users.asc .users
45 --------------------------------
47 The .users file is designed to live in a SCM repository, such as git,
48 alongside all the other encrypted files. In order to prevent
49 unauthorized tampering with the .users file - for tricking somebody to
50 re-encrypt data to the wrong key - the .users file needs to be
51 PGP-clearsigned with a key from a whitelist.
53 This whitelist lives in ~/.pws-trusted-users, and simply takes one
54 key fingerprint per line:
56 ---------------------------------
57 % cat ~/.pws-trusted-users
59 6E3966C1E1D15DB973D05B491E45F8CA9DE23B16
60 ---------------------------------
62 Currently this whitelist is the same for any pws repositories a user
63 might have. A patch to remove this limitation would be nice.
69 -----------------------------
71 -----------------------------
76 Every file needs a header like:
78 ------------------------------
80 ------------------------------
82 You can edit the encrypted file with the pws tool: +pws ed file+.
87 If available as .keyring pws instructs GnuPG to use this keyring in
88 addition to the user's default keyrings. This allows sharing of the
89 keyring in the repository. Use +pws update-keyring+ to
90 update/initialize this keyring.