Frequently Asked Questions¶
What is sysPass?¶
sysPass is a password manager that allows to save passwords using bidirectional encryption with a master password to a database. Passwords are associated to accounts, and these have detailed information about it like: customer, category, notes, files, etc.
The initial idea was to make servers and services passwords accesible in a multiuser environment with security applied and make a portable bundle to store on a flash drive.
Where can I install sysPass?¶
The application can be installed on any system that has Apache, PHP and MySQL installed.
How do I install sysPass¶
You can download the application from https://github.com/nuxsmin/sysPass/releases/latest and follow steps on Installation
Which authentication methods are used?¶
sysPass uses MySQL/MariaDB or LDAP as authentication backends.
If LDAP is used and it is for some reason not possible to connect to the configured LDAP server, it will use MySQL as backend. In this case, user login data will be the last used on user login by LDAP.
More information on: Authentication
What is the encryption for?¶
The database passwords encryption allows that in case of anyone get access to the database or a data exporting is performed, it won’t be readable without the master key.
This solution is very convenient when you run the application from a flash drive, because if you lose it, the information is secured.
The encryption schema used is rijndael-256 in CBC mode.
More information on: Encryption
What is portable?¶
It means that you can run the application without really installing it.
This application can be portable by installing Apache, PHP and MySQL on a flash drive. You can use any available LAMP bundles like WAMP, XAMPP, etc.
The backup tool allows you to make a backup of whole the environment (application and database) for example to store it on a flash drive or put it somewhere safe as a backup.
Is there a master password for each account/user?¶
The master password is global for all accounts and users.
Each time a user is added, his personal password is changed or the master password is reset, the user needs to enter the master password on the next session login.
Each time the master password is changed, the users that are logged in, will only be able to view accounts details, until the new password is entered.
More information on: Encryption
What are Wiki links?¶
It allows you to link the accounts with a name pattern to an external Wiki that allow to pass the account name as a parameter in the URL.
There are two types of links, the one that links to a Wiki search page (and in which the account name is passed as a parameter), and the other that links to the account page in the Wiki.
What are categories?¶
Its goal is to classify the accounts to make more precise searches.
What are user groups?¶
These groups are used to give users access to accounts that have a certain group set as primary or secondary group
What is customer field?¶
Like categories, it is possible to do searches based on the customer. This field can be treated generically as department, company, division, etc..
En futuras versiones se podrán asociar usuarios a clientes.
Is there an account history?¶
Yes, each time an account is modified or deleted, the application saves a copy of the last state.
You can switch to a history point at account details page. If the master password that was used to save account history point differs from current, the password won’t be shown.
What are profiles?¶
Profiles are used to define actions that the users can do.
There are 16 access levels that can be activated and it allows to define which modules can be accessed by the users in which are defined.
What is maintenance mode?¶
This mode is used to disable the users to log in to the application while you are doing operations on database, updating, etc.
The user that enables the maintenance mode, will be the only one that can use the application until a session log out. After that it will be needed to disable it in the “config/config.xml” file within the tag “maintenance”
Can I change Master Password?¶
Yes, you need to know the current one. It’s advisable to make a database backup before this process.
I don’t remember Master Password, can I decrypt the passwords?¶
No, it’s not possible view the passwords without the Master Password.
Does backup runs on Windows?¶
Yes, it uses the PHP PHAR library to get it working.
The language doesn’t change¶
Please take a look to the locales installed on your system (server), because sysPass uses the GNU gettext system for internationalization.
The installed locales should be on the UTF-8 variant.