1pass

1pass is a caching wrapper for the 1Password CLI op.

Introduction

1pass is designed to make using your 1Password usernames and passwords quick and easy. It is intended for use within an interactive shell as well as from scripts. Once installed and configured as described below, you can obtain an account password in a shell simply by typing:

$ 1pass Github

and your Gitbub password will be copied to the clipboard.

The official 1Password CLI application (op) can be difficult to use interactively, and unlike the Mac OS X or Windows 1Password native applications, requires an internet connection to fetch data from your password vaults. 1pass solves both of these problems. Op needs session tokens to be revalidated manually after 30 minutes of inactivity and produces rich output in JSON format. The JSON output is easy for a program to use, but is not trivially consumed by humans without help. 1pass provides that help, with two main features:

• a simplified interface for listing and fetching usernames, passwords, and other fields for individual items.
• an encrypted local cache of 1Password CLI results.

Together these features enable easy use of 1Password-stored credentials.

Installation

First make sure that the op 1Password CLI is installed. If you use homebrew cask on Mac OS X, this works well:

$ brew cask install 1password-cli

Copy the 1pass executable file to a suitable location on your PATH (for example, /usr/local/bin) and ensure that it is executable. For example:

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/dcreemer/1pass/master/1pass > /usr/local/bin/1pass
chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/1pass

Security and Warning

1pass requires you to store your 1Password master password in a local GPG-encrypted file. You should inspect the source code to ensure that you trust the software, as well as read this documentation to understand the security tradeoffs.

Like the 1Password application itself, 1pass relies on one password. However that password is not your 1Password "master password" -- it is your Gnu Privacy Guard (gpg) private key. GPG, when configured to use the GPG-agent, will cache your private key password for a configurable length of time (a few hours to a day is perhaps reasonable). 1pass uses your GPG key to store an encrypted copies of your 1Password master password and your 1Password account secret key.

When data is needed from your online 1Password data store, the master password and secret key are temporarily decrypted and exchanged for a session token, which is also then encrypted and stored. The session token will be refreshed as needed. These actions happen automatically once your GPG key is available in the GPG-agent.

The data that is fetched from the 1Password service is cached in local files -- once again also encrypted using your GPG private key.

You can "lock" your 1pass session by running the "forget" command:

$ 1pass -f
cleared local session

which removes the local session token (if any), and calls gpgconf --kill gpg-agent to purge any running gpg-agent of your GPG secret keys.

Configuration

In order to run with minimum user input, 1pass relies on the Gnu Privacy Guard gpg to encrypt all locally stored data. 1Password needs both a master password and a secret key to access your vault. Each of these must be stored in an encrypted file (in the ~/.1pass) directory for 1pass to work correctly. 1pass encrypts these and all other files with your own gpg key. This key, as well as your 1Password login email and subdomain must be configured in the ~/.1pass/config file.

GPG can be configured to use the gpg-agent, which can prompt for your gpg password, and cache it in a local agent for a fixed amount of time. If you configure GPG this way, you will only need to enter you GPG password (e.g.) once a day, and then seldom need to enter your 1Password master password.

Running 1pass -rv repeatedly will output instructions on how to configure this file and safely store your master password and secret key.

$ ./1pass -rv
please config 1pass by editing /home/me/.1pass/config
$ vi ~/.1pass/config 
$ ./1pass -rv
please put your master password into /home/me/.1pass/_master.gpg
ex: echo "master-password" | gpg -er [email protected] > /home/me/.1pass/_master.gpg
$ echo "sEcre77" | gpg -er [email protected] > /home/me/.1pass/_master.gpg
$ ./1pass -rv
please put your mysubdomain.1password.com secret key into /home/me/.1pass/_secret.gpg
ex: echo "A3-XXXXXX-XXXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX" | gpg -er [email protected] > /home/me/.1pass/_secret.gpg
$ echo "A3-XXXXXX-XXXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX" | gpg -er [email protected] > /home/me/.1pass/_secret.gpg
$ ./1pass -rv
signing in to mysubdomain.1password.com [email protected]
...

Usage

Once you are configured and signed in, you are ready to use 1pass. The simplest command is 1pass with no arguments to list all items in your vault:

$ 1pass
Github
MyBankAccount
gmail.com
...

The list consists of the titles of each item. You can then retrieve the password of an item:

$ 1pass -p Github
sjd$kh23@0dfjs1DDj

The password is echoed to the standard output (when the '-p' option is used). You can easily use this in scripts, for example:

export PGPASSWORD=$(1pass -p MyPostgresServer)

Without the '-p' option, 1pass copies the password to the clipboard:

$ 1pass Github

The contents of the clipboard will be automatically cleared after 30 seconds. You can also pass 1pass an optional field argument -- for example "username" to retrieve that field from the item:

$ 1pass -p MyBankAccount username
[email protected]

1pass can lookup other fields besides username or password. They field name is the "label" for the field in the 1Password GUI.

$ 1pass -p MyBankAccount pin
1234

1pass can be nicely combined with fzf for fuzzy search and completion. Install fzf, then paste this function into your shell:

fuzzpass() {
    local arg=$1
    if [ "$arg" == "" ]; then
        arg="password"
    fi
    local item=$(1pass | fzf);
    [[ ! -z "$item" ]] && 1pass $item $arg
}

the type fuzzpass, select the Item, and press enter.

Emacs

For the brave, a trivial Emacs wrapper library is included. E.g.

(setq freenode-nick-username (1pass--item-username "Freenode/nick1"))
(setq freenode-nick-password (1pass--item-password "Freenode/nick1"))
(setq freenode-nick-password (1pass--item-field "Freenode" "server"))

Caching and Sessions

When using 1pass, all response data from 1Password is encrypted and then cached to ~/.1pass/cache. Sometimes this cache will be out of date -- for example if you have created a new password entry via the 1Password application. Passing -r to 1pass will force a refresh from the online 1Password vault.

Similarly, 1Password CLI sessions last for 30 minutes from the time of last use. 1pass will manage the session for you, and refresh it as needed.

License

Copyright (c) 2017, David Creemer (twitter: @dcreemer) with some components from other GPL 2+ software.

GPL3

Credits

Some ideas, and a tiny bit of code are taken from pass by Jason A. Donenfeld.