Introduction to KeePass

What is KeePass?
KeePass is a safe place for all your usernames, passwords, software licenses,
confirmations from vendors and even credit card information.

Why Use a Password Safe?

• It makes and remembers excellent passwords for every site you visit. These
passwords will be random and long.
• It is very dangerous to either try and remember your passwords or re-use the
same password on multiple sites. Using KeePass eliminates these problems.
• It helps you log into websites
• It stores license codes and other critical information from software vendors
• It protects all your licenses and passwords with state of the art encryption
making it unbreakable as long as you have a good passphrase.

I made a 5 minute introductory video screencast. Go ahead and watch it.

http://www.screencast.com/t/RgJjbdYF0p
Copyright(c) 2011 by Steven Shank
Why switch from my OCS Passwords safe to Keepass?
Keepass is much better than my program. It is much more secure. My OCS Passwords
is not using state of the art encryption. My program is crackable. In addition to being
safer, it is even easier to use than my program and has some great extra features. In
short, while OCS passwords was a good program in its time, its time has passed.

Among the many advanced features, KeePass lets you add fields, copy username and
passwords into websites and programs more easily, group your passwords and launch
websites directly from KeePass.
How Do You Switch from OCS Password to KeePass?
What I've done
• I worked with a programmer to write a program to convert current password
databases into a text file I could import into KeePass. All your information and notes
will be converted except for the date you created the record. The Company and
Program will be merged into Keepass's Title field. Version and contact are added to
your notes field. All notes are brought forward including the formatting.
• I wrote instructions and made screencasts to make the transition as easy as possible.
• If I convert your data for you, I'll send you back your file and then securely erase all
your data.
• I will not charge you to convert the data from OCS Passwords to KeePass.

What I want you to do

You can just start using KeePass instead of my program. However, if you'd like all your
passwords converted to the new program, I can help you do that.

Send me your passwrd.tps file and call me with the short simple password you
want used on the new program. You'll normally find the file in c:\security\passwords.
I'll email you back a Keepass database with all your passwords in it. It will be encrypted
with the password you sent me. You can download Keepass at:
http://keepass.info/download.html. You want version 2.17 installer for Windows. The
program is free and open source.

Watch the introductory video at: http://www.screencast.com/t/RgJjbdYF0p

Read the Quickstart guide that follows.

That is all that is necessary, but it would be helpful to read more of the information in
this newsletter to learn to get the most from KeePass.
KeePass Quickstart: What you absolutely need to know.
KeePass can be downloaded from: http://sourceforge.net/projects/keepass/files/

Adding an Entry: Do not add the entry into the website you are making the entry for.
Add it to KeePass first. Then copy to the website.

To add an entry just click

the Add Entry item in the
toolbar,

or
right click in the right
panel and select Add Entry

or
just press the INSert
button on your keyboard.

Making Passwords : Passwords are automatically generated for you. If those aren't
what you want, use the built-in password generator (Tools/Generate Password) to build
one to the requirements of the site. Of course, you can always simply type in whatever
passwords you like. A 2 minute video showing how to use the password generator is
here: http://www.screencast.com/t/eUNX5CBMQ

Showing and hiding passwords: CTRL-H will toggle between showing and hiding
passwords.

Saving your Passwords : Make sure to save the password file by pressing the Save
icon in the toolbar or CTRL-S.

Double clicking
Double clicking does different things depending on what you point to.
Instead of double clicking to copy, you can drag and drop the username and password
to their entry slots.

Show KeePass Hotkey: Left Ctrl-Alt-K is the hotkey to show KeePass, so if it is

buried behind other windows, you can bring it forward with this hotkey.

Clearing the Clipboard: It is dangerous to leave your passwords in the clipboard

after you copy them, so KeePass automatically clears the clipboard for you. By default it
does this in 12 seconds. This seems a little fast to me, so I change it to 20 or even 30
seconds. Tools/Options/Security: Clipboard auto-clear time (seconds).

Locking KeePass: I recommend locking KeePass after 1 or 2 hours of non-use. This

forces someone who accesses your computer when you leave to enter your password.
Tools/Options/Security: Lock workspace after KeePass inactivity (seconds). 3600
seconds is 1 hour. 7200 seconds is two hours.

Saving KeePass: To automatically save KeePass check the Automatically save when
closing/locking the database box in Tools/Options/Advanced.
How can I make a good Master Password?
No encryption can be any better than the password you use for that encryption. That is
why you want KeePass to make long random passwords for you. But you must make
the password to KeePass.

The 4 rules for a good passphrase:

• Unguessable
• Long (over 20 characters)
• Wide: each character from a large pool of possible characters
• Easy for you to remember and type

Two Steps to Great Passwords: for example,

1. You could start with a phrase like: I am happy with KeePass. Notice that it has
upper and lower case letters and a symbol, but is without any numerals. It is
already 24 characters long.
2. You Pad it. Since it is short on numerals and symbols, let's pad it with 333///
adding 6 more characters. Six additional characters will make it over 500 billion
times harder to crack (90^6). Another way to look at it is that it turns every
minute of cracking time into a million years.

Your passphrase is now 333///I am happy with KeePass. At 30 characters it will take a
computer which could attempt 100 billion guesses a second 6.90 hundred trillion
trillion trillion centuries to guess your passphrase.

Your master password is entered by pulling down the File menu and selecting: Change
Master Key...
Creating Passwords with Keepass
Select the Generate password option from the Tools menu.

You'll notice that you have lots of options for creating passwords and also Profiles to
name them. I recommend creating at least three standard profiles:
1. A default profile to use as the normal way to create passwords. You will save this as
"Automatically generated passwords for new entries". I suggest 30 to 50 characters
using upper and lower case, digits, the minus and underscore and special
characters. These will automatically be created and filled into any new entry you
create.
2. Save this configuration again with a descriptive name, like 40 characters - All
groups
3. A restricted system for those insecure sites that don't let you have long passwords or
use special characters. For these I recommend 12-18 characters, upper and lower
case and numerals.

All you need to do to make a profile is to configure it from the menu and then save it
with a name. You can delete any profile you don't use.

Demo video here: http://www.screencast.com/t/eUNX5CBMQ

HotKey Login with KeePass
You can easily setup KeePass to login to most websites at the press of a global Hotkey.
The default is CTRL-ALT-A. KeePass will see if it can match a password record to the
website you are on, and if so, it will log you in. I use this to login to every website I use
except for banking and Paypal which require extra login hoops.

How to make it work for a website.

When you go to a website, you'll notice the tab in your browser has a name. If part of
that name can be your title, then KeePass will make the association and you don't need
to do anything else!

Example 1.

In the above example, the Firefox tab where I login to books on board says,
"BooksOnBoard - largest independent..." . Since the name of the site is booksonboard,
I simply made the title match the beginning of the entry. Now, when I go there, I press
CTRL-ALT-A and KeePass matches the appropriate record and logs me in.

Example 2.
But, you don't need to match the beginning. You can match anywhere in the tab label.

Linked-In's page has the words "LinkedIn" past the ... above. I saw it by hovering over
the tab. Since LinkedIn is somewhere on the tab, I can make my title Linkedin and
KeePass can match the page and log me in.

Example 3.
What if their title isn't any good for your title? Occasionally, the tab title doesn't
provide useful information. For example, when I login to my Postini account it looks
like this:

Obviously, I can't title my password record for Postini "Log in", so I use an alternate
approach. From the Edit Entry screen I select Auto-Type and then Add to do a custom
sequence.

Then a target window screen comes up and I pull down the list. It lists every window
that is available in Windows at that time. I select the appropriate Firefox window and
press OK and now KeePass can log me in.

What KeePass does.

KeePass calls this feature Global Autotype (because it automatically types your
username and password for you at the press of a global hotkey. If the title of any
KeePass record is part of the Window Title of the current window, and KeePass is
running in the background, then when you press the Global Autotype Hotkey, it will fill
in the username, then press tab, then fill in the password and press Enter.

I demonstrate Global Autotype in this 3 minute video:

http://www.screencast.com/t/sMR3KscYV7VB
Getting the Most from KeePass
Ctrl-H: will hide and unhide your passwords.

Global AutoType: is a great tool, making it even easier to enter your passwords. Don't
be afraid to play with it.

Launch Websites from KeePass: Always open KeePass first and put in the URLs
you want to go to. Then just click the URL column in the list and enter or autotype your
username and password.

History: The last tab on each entry keeps a history of all edits. Whenever you edit an
entry, either adding notes, or changing the username or password or URL, the previous
entry is saved into History. The date is the date that entry was created, not the date it
was saved as history. So, if a website makes you change your username or password, or
an upgrade changes the license number, you don't need to worry. The previous entry is
stored for you. Database settings lets you decide how many previous entries you want.
You can also delete entries from the History Tab.

Ctrl-Alt-K: to bring KeePass forward if it is buried under other windows.

Finding Your Password:

• Grouping: You can group your passwords into types, for example: Software,
Financial, Ebook Stores. Grouping allows you to find your passwords quicker. I
also made a group for OLD passwords. These were ones I don't expect to ever
use again, but was a little afraid to get rid of.
• Search: can be done two ways:
• Searching can be done by just typing in the list. You will move forward
through the list alphabetically.
 • Search can also be done using the quick search entry field which will search
for that word throughout the whole database including notes. CTRL-E is the
shortcut key for it.

Control How KeePass Looks

• Layout: From the View Menu, you can choose Window Layout for either a side
by side view (notes on the side) or a stacked view (notes below).
• Font: From the Tools menu choose Options then Interface and Select List Font to
choose a font to your liking.
• Show or Hide subgroups. If you use subgroups, you can control whether the
subgroups show in the list of the main group.
• Configure Columns: From the View menu you can choose Configure Columns
to determine which columns will show in the list. KeePass defaults to showing
notes, which I don't see the purpose for, and I like it to show a Last Accessed
column because sometimes I can't find something and I know I used it sometime
in the last few weeks.
Screencasts I've Made for KeePass

Introduction to KeePass
http://www.screencast.com/t/RgJjbdYF0p

Using KeePass to Make Passwords

http://www.screencast.com/t/eUNX5CBMQ

Global Hotkey Logins with KeePass

http://www.screencast.com/t/sMR3KscYV7VB