Keepass with Fastmail and DAV

[Fenman]

I've recently started using Keepass to store my passwords. Another thread here made me wonder whether I could safely store the database on Fastmail files and use Webdav to access it.

The main motive for that would be so that I can use a single copy database the different machines I use to log in.

Is this safe? In particular, when I enter the password for the Keepass database, does it risk being exposed?

Thanks

[IanO]

Hey Fenman,

If you are using https://dav.messagingengine.com/ (not http) it should be secure.

Did you ever get this working?

[Fenman]

Hello. IanO

Thank you for taking taking interest in this old post. I appreciate your reassurance. Yes, it seemed to work OK but I abandoned it because I had unrelated problems of opening the DAV connection automatically on startup.

It became less fiddly to have local copies but to to synchronise them through Fastmail files with Syncback.

[eidolen]

Hi,
I know this is old but I'm trying the same thing via FTP with no joy, it always returns with "The remote name could not be resolved: "ftp.messagingengine.com"
or
"The remote name could not be resolved: "myfiles.messagingengine.com"

The Keepass interface for uploading only has 3 fields:

URL:
(The complete URL must be specified, including protocol, server, and full path to file.)

User Name: 'me@domain.com'
Password: xxxxxxxx

I have tried the URL a zillion different ways and it just wont work.

http://myfiles.messagingengine.com/mykp3db1.kdbx
myfiles.messagingengine.com/mykp3db1.kdbx
ftp.messagingengine.com/xxx@xxxx.com/files/Private/Files/mykp3db1.kdbx
ftp://ftp.messagingengine.com/xxx@xx.../mykp3db1.kdbx

Any help would be extremely appreciated,
Eidoen

[IanO]

I am not sure what you mean by: 'The Keepass interface for uploading'

Are you talking about a feature of the program?

[IanO]

I think you are talking about 'Open URL', that is opening a file specified by a URL.

I downloaded the latest version of KeePass (2.14) and successfully opened and saved a file via FTP.

It looks like you need a '.' in the URL where you have an '@' in the fourth URL you posted

If you open ftp://ftp.messagingengine.com in a browser (I use Firefox) it will prompt you for your standard FM user name and password. Then find the file you want and copy the full URL of the file (in Firefox right-click the filename and 'Copy Link Location')

[IanO]

I wonder how secure this is, I suspect the username/password are transmitted in plain text?

I also tried setting up a website and accessing that with KeePass, I can open a file but only by specifying a username even though the website itself does not need one (any name will do). If I do not specify a name I get an 'unauthorised' message from KeePass.

When I try to save the file again I get a 'not found' message from KeePass. The message gives the file name like this:

http://www.website.com/folder/file.kbdx:username@fastmail.fm

Maybe it is looking for that whole thing including the user name part?


Anyone found a good secure way to use KeePass with the FM filespace? I have tried netdrive, WebDav and now FTP all seem either a little flaky or insecure.

[IanO]

Here is one way to keep your FM password secure while using KeePass to open a file (using 'Open URL') in your FM file space, the URL needs to look similar to this with your own username, folder structure and filenames:

https://dav.messagingengine.com/username.fastmail.fm/files/folder/subfolder/Test.kdbx

As in one of the previous posts the easy way to get this right is to go to:

https://dav.messagingengine.com

in Firefox, navigate to the file you want and copy the link location to use for the KeePass URL.

Now for some testing...

[ChinaLamb]

Leaving dav connections open on windows has a nasty habbit of bringing on a blue screen of death...

surprised that Microsoft hasn't fixed this bug that's seemingly been around forever...

unless they fixed it without informing me...

[IanO]

Not sure if KeePass has the connection open all the time.

I found another way to do this I am more comfortable with where the KeePass program uses a local copy of your password file and only syncs with FastMail storage when you save. So no permanent open DAV connection; also kind of tricky to do without keeping your Fastmail password in plain text. Perhaps I will write a wiki...

[ChinaLamb]

Sorry, I need to clarify my post. Making a mapped DAV drive in windows (which makes a long term DAV connection) will end up causing a BSOD...

[Prognathous]

Necroing this thread as it's likely that those who posted may have experience with this. I'm planning to use WebDAV to access my KeePass database. Are there any issues if I'm accessing the same database from multiple machines at the same time?

Also, is there any reason to pay $50 or so for a NetDrive license when Windows built in WebDAV client seems to work just as well?

[theDuke]

Originally Posted by Prognathous

Necroing this thread as it's likely that those who posted may have experience with this. I'm planning to use WebDAV to access my KeePass database. Are there any issues if I'm accessing the same database from multiple machines at the same time?

Also, is there any reason to pay $50 or so for a NetDrive license when Windows built in WebDAV client seems to work just as well?

I just did it. I was using dropbox but shifted completely to fastmail webdav.
I use it on android with keepass2android which works perfect.
On windows I use the webdav function in Keepass.

It works just as good as dropbox used to do.

Making changes in two opened databases is a problem I guess. I don't think if will sync then. If you don't make changes to the databases while it is open in different places it won't give you any problems.

I like it this way. Feels better than the dropbox option.