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https://github.com/xolox/python-qpass

Frontend for pass (the standard unix password manager)
https://github.com/xolox/python-qpass

cli command-line fuzzy-search pass password-manager python search unix

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Frontend for pass (the standard unix password manager)

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qpass: Frontend for pass (the standard unix password manager)

=============================================================



.. image:: https://travis-ci.org/xolox/python-qpass.svg?branch=master

   :target: https://travis-ci.org/xolox/python-qpass



.. image:: https://coveralls.io/repos/xolox/python-qpass/badge.svg?branch=master

   :target: https://coveralls.io/r/xolox/python-qpass?branch=master



The qpass program is a simple command line frontend for pass_, the standard

unix password manager. It makes it very easy to quickly find and copy specific

passwords in your ``~/.password-store`` to the clipboard. The package is

currently tested on cPython 2.6, 2.7, 3.4, 3.5, 3.6 and PyPy (2.7). It's

intended to work on Linux as well as macOS, although it has only been tested on

Linux.



.. contents::

   :local:



Installation

------------



The qpass package is available on PyPI_ which means installation should be as

simple as:



.. code-block:: sh



   $ pip install qpass



There's actually a multitude of ways to install Python packages (e.g. the `per

user site-packages directory`_, `virtual environments`_ or just installing

system wide) and I have no intention of getting into that discussion here, so

if this intimidates you then read up on your options before returning to these

instructions ;-).



Usage

-----



There are two ways to use the qpass package: As the command line program

``qpass`` and as a Python API. For details about the Python API please refer to

the API documentation available on `Read the Docs`_. The command line interface

is described below.



Command line

~~~~~~~~~~~~



.. A DRY solution to avoid duplication of the `qpass --help' text:

..

.. [[[cog

.. from humanfriendly.usage import inject_usage

.. inject_usage('qpass.cli')

.. ]]]



**Usage:** `qpass [OPTIONS] KEYWORD..`



Search your password store for the given keywords or patterns and copy the

password of the matching entry to the clipboard. When more than one entry

matches you will be prompted to select the password to copy.



If you provide more than one KEYWORD all of the given keywords must match,

in other words you're performing an AND search instead of an OR search.



Instead of matching on keywords you can also enter just a few of the characters

in the name of a password, as long as those characters are in the right order.

Some examples to make this more concrete:



- The pattern 'pe/zbx' will match the name 'Personal/Zabbix'.

- The pattern 'ba/cc' will match the name 'Bank accounts/Creditcard'.



When a password is copied to the clipboard, any text after the first line will

be shown on the terminal, to share any additional details about the password

entry (for example the associated username or email address). The ``-q``, ``--quiet``

option suppresses this text.



**Supported options:**



.. csv-table::

   :header: Option, Description

   :widths: 30, 70



   "``-e``, ``--edit``",Edit the matching entry instead of copying it to the clipboard.

   "``-l``, ``--list``",List the matching entries on standard output.

   "``-n``, ``--no-clipboard``","Don't copy the password of the matching entry to the clipboard, instead

   show the password on the terminal (by default the password is copied to

   the clipboard but not shown on the terminal)."

   "``-p``, ``--password-store=DIRECTORY``","Search the password store in ``DIRECTORY``. If this option isn't given

   the password store is located using the ``$PASSWORD_STORE_DIR``

   environment variable. If that environment variable isn't

   set the directory ~/.password-store is used.

   

   You can use the ``-p``, ``--password-store`` option multiple times to search more

   than one password store at the same time. No distinction is made between

   passwords in different password stores, so the names of passwords need to

   be recognizable and unique."

   "``-f``, ``--filter=PATTERN``","Don't show lines in the additional details which match the case insensitive

   regular expression given by ``PATTERN``. This can be used to avoid revealing

   sensitive details on the terminal. You can use this option more than once."

   "``-x``, ``--exclude=GLOB``","Ignore passwords whose name matches the given ``GLOB`` filename pattern.

   This argument can be repeated to add multiple exclude patterns."

   "``-v``, ``--verbose``",Increase logging verbosity (can be repeated).

   "``-q``, ``--quiet``",Decrease logging verbosity (can be repeated).

   "``-h``, ``--help``",Show this message and exit.



.. [[[end]]]



Why use pass?

-------------



In 2016 I was looking for a way to securely share passwords and other secrets

between my laptops and smartphones. I'm not going to bore you with the full

details of my quest to find the ultimate password manager but I can highlight a

few points about pass_ that are important to me:



.. contents::

   :local:



GPG encryption

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



GPG_ is a cornerstone of computer security and it's open source. This means it

receives quite a lot of peer review, which makes it easier for me to trust

(versus do-it-yourself_ cryptography). Because pass_ uses GPG_ to implement its

encryption my trust extends directly to pass_. Of course it also helps that I

had years of experience with GPG_ before I started using pass_ :-).



Git version control

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



The git_ integration in pass_ makes it very easy to keep your passwords under

version control and synchronize the passwords between multiple systems. Git_ is

a great version control system and while I sometimes get annoyed by the fact

that ``git pull`` automatically merges, it's actually the perfect default

choice for a password store. As an added bonus you have a history of every

change you ever made to your passwords.



SSH secure transport

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



I've been using SSH_ to access remote systems over secure connections for *a

very long time* now so I'm quite comfortable setting up and properly securing

SSH servers. In the case of pass_ I use SSH to synchronize my passwords between

my laptops and smartphones via a central server that hosts the private git

repository.



History

-------



Shortly after starting to use pass_ I realized that I needed a quick and easy

way to copy any given password to the clipboard, something smarter than the

pass_ program.



I tried out several GUI frontends but to be honest each of them felt clumsy, I

guess that through my work as a system administrator and programmer I've grown

to prefer command line interfaces over graphical user interfaces :-). For a few

weeks I tried upass_ (a somewhat fancy command line interface) but the lack of

simple things like case insensitive search made me stop using it.



Out of frustration I hacked together a simple Python script that would perform

case insensitive substring searches on my passwords, copying the password to

the clipboard when there was exactly one match. I called the Python script

qpass, thinking that it was similar in purpose to upass_ but much quicker

for me to use, so `q` (for quick) instead of `u`.



After using that Python script for a while I noticed that case insensitive

substring searching still forced me to specify long and detailed patterns in

order to get a unique match. Experimenting with other ways to match unique

passwords I came up with the idea of performing a "fuzzy match" against the

pathname of the password (including the directory components). The fuzzy

searching where a pattern like ``e/z`` matches ``Personal/Zabbix`` has since

become my primary way of interacting with my password stores.



Support for multiple password stores

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



One great aspect of pass_ is the git_ integration that makes it easy to share a

password store between several devices [#]_ or people [#]_. This use case makes

it much more likely that you'll end up using multiple password stores, which is

something that pass_ doesn't specifically make easy.



This is why I added support for querying multiple password stores to qpass in

version 2.0. For now I've kept things simple which means no distinction is made

between passwords in different password stores, so the names of passwords need

to be recognizable and unique.



.. [#] For example I synchronize my password store between my personal laptop

       and my work laptop and I also have access to my password store on my

       smartphones (thanks to the Android application `Password Store`_).



.. [#] My team at work also uses pass_ so because I was already using pass_ for

       personal use, I now find myself frequently searching through multiple

       password stores.



About the name

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



As explained above I initially wrote and named qpass with no intention of ever

publishing it. However since then my team at work has started using pass_ to

manage a shared pasword store and ever since we started doing that I've missed

the ability to query that password store using qpass :-).



Publishing qpass as an open source project with a proper Python package

available on PyPI_ provides a nice way to share qpass with my team and it also

forces me to maintain proper documentation and an automated test suite.



While considering whether to publish qpass I found that there's an existing

password manager out there called `QPass `_.

I decided not to rename my project for the following reasons:



- While both projects are password managers, they are intended for very

  different audiences (I'm expecting my end users to be power users that are

  most likely system administrators and/or programmers).



- I consider the name of the executable of a GUI program to be a lot less

  relevant than the name of the executable of a command line program. This is

  because the GUI will most likely be started via an application launcher,

  which means the executable doesn't even need to be on the ``$PATH``.



- Let's be honest, pass_ is already for power users only, so my qpass frontend

  is most likely not going to see a lot of users ;-).



Contact

-------



The latest version of qpass is available on PyPI_ and GitHub_. The

documentation is hosted on `Read the Docs`_ and includes a changelog_. For bug

reports please create an issue on GitHub_. If you have questions, suggestions,

etc. feel free to send me an e-mail at `[email protected]`_.



License

-------



This software is licensed under the `MIT license`_.



© 2018 Peter Odding.



.. External references:

.. _changelog: https://qpass.readthedocs.io/en/latest/changelog.html

.. _do-it-yourself: https://security.stackexchange.com/a/18198

.. _git: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Git

.. _GitHub: https://github.com/xolox/python-qpass

.. _GPG: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Privacy_Guard

.. _Linux: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux

.. _MIT license: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_License

.. _pass: https://www.passwordstore.org/

.. _Password Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.zeapo.pwdstore

.. _per user site-packages directory: https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0370/

.. [email protected]: [email protected]

.. _PyPI: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/qpass

.. _Python Package Index: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/qpass

.. _Python: https://www.python.org/

.. _Read the Docs: https://qpass.readthedocs.org

.. _SSH: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Shell

.. _upass: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/upass

.. _virtual environments: http://docs.python-guide.org/en/latest/dev/virtualenvs/