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https://github.com/radian-software/pass-ln

🔑 Pass extension for creating symbolic links.
https://github.com/radian-software/pass-ln

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🔑 Pass extension for creating symbolic links.

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README 

        
# pass-ln



This repository has a [Pass](https://www.passwordstore.org/) extension

providing the `pass ln` subcommand, which creates symbolic links

within your password store.



## Motivation



Consider a website like [Stack Exchange](https://stackexchange.com/),

where you have a single account and set of login credentials, but you

use it to log into a number of different domains, including

`stackoverflow.com`, `askubuntu.com`, `mathoverflow.com`, and others.

One way to represent this in the password store is using symbolic

links:



```

% pass insert stackexchange.com/[email protected]

% ln -s stackexchange.com ~/.password-store/stackoverflow.com

% ln -s stackexchange.com ~/.password-store/askubuntu.com

% ln -s stackexchange.com ~/.password-store/mathoverflow.com

```



The advantage: your shared credentials are automatically available for

autofill on all the individual websites, without the need for further

configuration; meanwhile, there is only one underlying password file,

so there is no fear of things getting out of sync.



## Usage



This extension adds a simple subcommand to replace the commands above

like so:



```

% pass insert stackexchange.com/[email protected]

% pass ln stackexchange.com stackoverflow.com

% pass ln stackexchange.com askubuntu.com

% pass ln stackexchange.com mathoverflow.com

```



It does the same thing, but with more friendly semantics: both

arguments are taken as entries relative to the root of your password

store, and have proper autocompletion. The subcommand automatically

determines the right relative path to set as the target of the

symbolic link, so you don't have to worry about accidentally

hardcoding the path to your password store directory.



## Installation



You can download the latest release from GitHub Releases, or install

from source.



Installing from distro repositories:



* Ubuntu/Debian: (not available)

* Red Hat/Fedora: (not available)

* Arch Linux: [available on AUR as

  `pass-ln`](https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/pass-ln)

* Homebrew: [available in custom tap as

  `radian-software/pass-ln/pass-ln`](https://github.com/radian-software/homebrew-pass-ln)



Installing an official release:



* Ubuntu/Debian: `sudo apt install ./pass-extension-ln-x.y.z.deb`

* Red Hat/Fedora: `sudo dnf install ./pass-ln-x.y.z.rpm`

* Arch Linux: `tar -xvf ./pass-ln-pkgbuild-x.y.z.tar.gz && cd

  pass-ln-pkgbuild-x.y.z && makepkg -si`

* Homebrew: `unzip ./pass-ln-homebrew-x.y.z.tar.gz && cd

  pass-ln-homebrew-x.y.z.tar.gz && brew install ./Formula/pass-ln.rb`

* Manual: `sudo tar -xvf ./pass-ln-x.y.z.tar.gz --strip-components=1

  -C /usr`, and install `pass` and `coreutils`



Installing from source (in `packaging` directory):



* Ubuntu/Debian: `make deb-install`

* Red Hat/Fedora: `make rpm-install`

* Arch Linux: `make pkgbuild-install`

* Homebrew: `make homebrew-install`

* Manual: `make tar` will generate `pass-ln-x.y.z.tar.gz` but will not

  install it automatically since installing software outside a package

  manager is not generally recommended



Running from source without installing:



* Add `export PASSWORD_STORE_ENABLE_EXTENSIONS=true` to your shell

  profile.

* Create `~/.password-store/.extensions` if it does not already exist

  (substitute the value of `PASSWORD_STORE_EXTENSIONS_DIR` if set).

* Create a symbolic link, `ln -s "$PWD/pass-ln.bash"

  ~/.password-store/.extensions/ln.bash`.



## Reference documentation



If you have installed `pass-ln`, you can access full documentation in

its man page by running `man pass-ln`. The same information is

reproduced here for convenience.



The full command-line syntax for `pass ln`, creating a symbolic link

named `LINK_NAME` pointing at `TARGET`:



```

% pass ln TARGET LINK_NAME

```



`TARGET` and `LINK_NAME` are both relative to the password store root

in all cases (i.e., they would be suitable as arguments to other

subcommands such as `pass generate` and `pass edit`). The symbolic

link will always be relative, and `TARGET` is rewritten using the

appropriate relative path given the parent directory of `LINK_NAME`.

Note that `TARGET` can be either a file or directory.



`LINK_NAME` must not already exist. There is no option to overwrite an

existing file or directory with a symbolic link. To do this, first

`pass rm` the existing file or directory, then create the symbolic

link with `pass ln`.



Any needed parent directories will be created automatically, like

`pass` does normally.



If `LINK_NAME` has a trailing slash, it will be automatically suffixed

with the basename of `TARGET`, like in `mv` and `cp`. This behavior is

restricted to when `LINK_NAME` explicitly has a trailing slash, to

minimize confusion.



## Known issues



* You cannot use `pass insert` to insert an entry into a directory

  through a symlink (e.g. if `foo` is a symlink pointing to directory

  `bar`, then `pass insert foo/quux` will fail even though `pass

  insert bar/quux` is fine). The error is `fatal: pathspec

  '/home/yourname/.password-store/foo/quux.gpg' is beyond a symbolic

  link`. This is a bug in Pass and cannot be fixed in pass-ln.

  Unfortunately, Pass does not have a bug tracker, so there is no

  upstream reference for the bug.

* The output of `pass ls` may be unexpected in the face of symbolic

  links. In particular, you may see the text `[recursive, not

  followed]` after a symbolic link. This is normal, and indicates that

  the contents of the directory that the symlink is pointing to have

  already been displayed in the current output, and `tree` is

  refraining from showing the same information a second time.

* Autocompletion for `pass ln` does not work in Fish. Unfortunately,

  this is due to a bug in Pass which causes it to ignore Pass

  extensions when generating autocompletions, and there is no way to

  fix this in pass-ln.