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Passbolt Initial Impressions

Benjamin Sanders | 04 April 2023 | passbolt

Image of a text that reads passbolt in black lettering

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So, today (4th of April 2023) I decided to spin up a Debian 11 VM to install passbolt to and try out self-hosting a password manager. I currently use 1Password and don’t really see myself switching to a self-hosted solution but figured there is no harm in trying out the “competition”.

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The install process so far has been super easy and CLI oriented. I decided to go with the non-Docker install because I like running things directly in the VM. Maybe I’m finally get old -shrug-

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Anyway, the process was basically going to https://www.passbolt.com/ce/debian and follow the instructions in CLI.

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wget "https://download.passbolt.com/ce/installer/passbolt-repo-setup.ce.sh" 
+wget "https://github.com/passbolt/passbolt-dep-scripts/releases/latest/download/passbolt-ce-SHA512SUM.txt" 
+sha512sum -c passbolt-ce-SHA512SUM.txt && sudo bash ./passbolt-repo-setup.ce.sh || echo "Bad checksum. Aborting" && rm -f passbolt-repo-setup.ce.sh
+sudo apt install passbolt-ce-server
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One thing I notice is that it installs certbot implying I should be using a domain and not attempting to this locally. Let’s see what happens when I try it locally anyway.

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Okay, it’s going to start off creating an empty database.

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Saved the MySQL user and password in 1Password 😆 then got to the TLS section and hit none since I don’t have a domain to use currently. Looks like I can provide the IP of the server instead though which I’m entering in 192.168.1.173.

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Setting up PHP 7.4 and MariaDB 10.5 so a little out-of-date on the PHP but not too bad. We’re done!

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Let’s go the server’s IP and see what it looks like now and get it configured.

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Cool as mentioned in the wiki I get the not yet configured page https://help.passbolt.com/hosting/install/ce/debian/debian.html

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Entering in the database information

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🤔 Hmm getting that it can’t connect to the database.

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I know it’s online and I can connect.

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ben@passbolt-test:~$ mysql -u passboltadmin -p
+Enter password:
+Welcome to the MariaDB monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
+Your MariaDB connection id is 41
+Server version: 10.5.18-MariaDB-0+deb11u1 Debian 11
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+MariaDB [(none)]> show databases;
++--------------------+
+| Database           |
++--------------------+
+| information_schema |
+| passboltdb         |
++--------------------+
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I know for sure MariaDB is running.

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ben@passbolt-test:~$ sudo systemctl status mariadb.service
+● mariadb.service - MariaDB 10.5.18 database server
+	 Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/mariadb.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
+	 Active: active (running) since Tue 2023-04-04 11:47:04 EDT; 11min ago
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Found it!

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I was trying to use the server’s public IP and needed the local IP 127.0.0.1.

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Source: https://community.passbolt.com/t/trying-to-configure-passbolt-database-configuration/5322

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Got it going and got a neat message setting up. Lmao

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Tried setting up the iOS app but guess it won’t work without a TLS certificate of some kinds which makes sense. https://community.passbolt.com/t/oops-something-went-wrong-when-trying-to-set-up-mobile-transfers/5124

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All-in-all I’m going to keep trying out Passbolt but don’t see myself switching from 1Password to self-hosted but might be good to have a local backup.

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