Create and safely store and keep your passwords in Ubuntu

How often You were listening about how it is important to create strong passwords for Your accounts? Password's strength and way of keeping are essential questions today. In this article I'll present to You my way of creating and keeping passwords.

There are many different ways, so feel free to explore.

 

Create

The tool I'm using to create my passwords is makepasswd. You can install it via Ubuntu Software Center or via terminal:

sudo apt-get install makepasswd

Then, generate random password (i.e. 20 characters):

makepasswd --chars=20

For full list of options, use:

makepasswd --help

Its very important to create random password, with no meaning. If You decide to manualy create Your password, please avoid personal names, phone numbers etc... Use combination of uppercase and lovercase letters, special characters etc...

Store

There are many apps which allow You to store Your passwords. I love KeePassX.

sudo apt-get install keepassx

When You start the app, it'll ask You to create master password for entering. Please, create strong password and keep it on a peace of paper and do not show it to anybody.

I'm using master password in Firefox and Thunderbird, too.
Now You can enter Your accounts and related informations in KeePassX.

Keep

When You finished, You'll need to save it to a file. Make sure to change permissions of the file, so only You can read or write it. You can do this by

right click on the file->Properties->Permissions

and set permissions like this:

Anyway, I prefere to keep the file on USB stick key, not in my computer. Well, its up to You.