pass tomb

A pass extension that helps you keep the whole tree of passwords encrypted inside a Tomb.

Description

Due to the structure of pass, file- and directory names are not encrypted in the password store. pass-tomb provides a convenient solution to put your password store in a Tomb and then keep your password tree encrypted when you are not using it.

It uses the same GPG key to encrypt passwords and tomb, therefore you don't need to manage more key or secret. Moreover, you can ask pass-tomb to automatically close your store after a given time.

The new workflow is the following:

Create a password tomb with pass tomb

Create a new tomb and open it in ~/.password-store
Initialize the password store with the same GPG key

Use pass as usual
When finished, close the password tomb: pass close
To use pass again, you need to open the password tomb: pass open

Usage

pass tomb 1.3 - A pass extension that helps to keep the whole tree of
                password encrypted inside a tomb.

Usage:
    pass tomb [-n] [-t time] [-f] [-p subfolder] gpg-id...
        Create and initialise a new password tomb
        Use gpg-id for encryption of both tomb and passwords

    pass open [subfolder] [-t time] [-f]
        Open a password tomb

    pass close [store]
        Close a password tomb

    pass timer [store]
        Show timer status

Options:
    -n, --no-init  Do not initialise the password store
    -t, --timer    Close the store after a given time
    -p, --path     Create the store for that specific subfolder
    -f, --force    Force operation (i.e. even if swap is active)
    -q, --quiet    Be quiet
    -v, --verbose  Be verbose
    -d, --debug    Print tomb debug messages
        --unsafe   Speed up tomb creation (for testing only)
    -V, --version  Show version information.
    -h, --help     Print this help message and exit.

More information may be found in the pass-tomb(1) man page.

See man pass-tomb for more information.

Examples

Create a new password tomb

$ pass tomb <gpg-id>
 (*) Your password tomb has been created and opened in ~/.password-store.
 (*) Password store initialized for <gpg-id>
  .  Your tomb is: ~/.password.tomb
  .  Your tomb key is: ~/.password.key.tomb
  .  You can now use pass as usual.
  .  When finished, close the password tomb using 'pass close'.

Open a password tomb

$ pass open
 (*) Your password tomb has been opened in ~/.password-store.
  .  You can now use pass as usual.
  .  When finished, close the password tomb using 'pass close'.

Close a password tomb

$ pass close
 (*) Your password tomb has been closed.
  .  Your passwords remain present in ~/.password.tomb.

Create a new password tomb and set a timer

$ pass tomb <gpg-id> --timer=1h
 (*) Your password tomb has been created and opened in ~/.password-store.
 (*) Password store initialized for <gpg-id>
  .  Your tomb is: ~/.password.tomb
  .  Your tomb key is: ~/.password.key.tomb
  .  You can now use pass as usual.
  .  This password store will be closed in 1h

$ pass open
(*) Your password tomb has been opened in ~/.password-store.
 .  You can now use pass as usual.
 .  This password store will be closed in 1h

Open a password store and set a timer

$ pass open --timer=10min
 (*) Your password tomb has been opened in ~/.password-store.
  .  You can now use pass as usual.
  .  This password store will be closed in 10min

Import existing password repository

In order to use pass-tomb with your existing password repository you can:

Move your password repository: mv ~/.password-store ~/.password-store-backup
Create and open a new password tomb: pass tomb <gpgid>
Move all the content of your password repository in the new password tomb:
```
mv ~/.password-store-backup/ ~/.password-store`
```

Environment Variables

PASSWORD_STORE_TOMB: path to tomb executable
PASSWORD_STORE_TOMB_FILE: path to the password tomb (default: ~/.password.tomb)
PASSWORD_STORE_TOMB_KEY: path to the password tomb key file (default: ~/.password.key.tomb)
PASSWORD_STORE_TOMB_SIZE: password tomb size in MB (default: 30)

Multiple password tombs

It is possible to create multiple pass tomb and open them separately. You only need to set the tomb file, key and the password store directory manually using the environment variables:

Create a tomb

PASSWORD_STORE_TOMB_FILE=<tomb_path> PASSWORD_STORE_TOMB_KEY=<key_path> PASSWORD_STORE_DIR=<dir_path> pass tomb <gpgid>

Open/Close a tomb

PASSWORD_STORE_TOMB_FILE=<tomb_path> PASSWORD_STORE_TOMB_KEY=<key_path> PASSWORD_STORE_DIR=<dir_path> pass open
PASSWORD_STORE_TOMB_FILE=<tomb_path> PASSWORD_STORE_TOMB_KEY=<key_path> PASSWORD_STORE_DIR=<dir_path> pass close

If you always need a second password store, you can create a pass alias, pass2 that will manage the second store with in .bashrc:

alias pass2='PASSWORD_STORE_TOMB_FILE=<tomb_path> PASSWORD_STORE_TOMB_KEY=<key_path> PASSWORD_STORE_DIR=<dir_path> pass'

Advanced use

Using tomb to store your password repository, you can take advantage of the tomb advanced feature like steganography and private cloud storage. The tomb website provide a good presentation of the features available with Tomb. Moreover, you can read my guide on how to use Tomb with GPG keys.

pass-tomb is not compatible with Android, but it should not be an issue for you. If you consider it is safe to put your password-store on Android then, it probably means you attacker model does not require the need of pass-tomb.

Installation

Requirements

pass 1.7.0 or greater.
tomb 2.4 or greater.
A systemd based Linux distribution is required to use the timer feature.

ArchLinux

pass-tomb is available in the Arch User Repository.

yay -S pass-tomb  # or your preferred AUR install method

Debian

apt install pass-extension-tomb

NixOS

nix-env -iA nixos.passExtensions.pass-tomb

OSX

pass-tomb is based on dm-crypt and therefore it is not compatible with Mac systems.

From git

git clone https://github.com/roddhjav/pass-tomb/
cd pass-tomb
sudo make install

Stable version

wget https://github.com/roddhjav/pass-tomb/releases/download/v1.3/pass-tomb-1.3.tar.gz
tar xzf pass-tomb-1.3.tar.gz
cd pass-tomb-1.3
sudo make install

Releases and commits are signed using 06A26D531D56C42D66805049C5469996F0DF68EC. You should check the key's fingerprint and verify the signature:

wget https://github.com/roddhjav/pass-tomb/releases/download/v1.3/pass-tomb-1.3.tar.gz.asc
gpg --recv-keys 06A26D531D56C42D66805049C5469996F0DF68EC
gpg --verify pass-tomb-1.3.tar.gz.asc

Contribution

Feedback, contributors, pull requests are all very welcome.