pass on OSX

January 08, 2014

I setup pass on my OSX boxes as a simple password manager. The doc for pass is good, but assumes you have a GPG key already. Here's what I did top to bottom.

desktop$ brew update
desktop$ brew install pass

# create a key, answer all prompts
desktop$ gpg2 --gen-key

# init password store using email from key
desktop$ pass init parente@cs.unc.edu

# add passwords
desktop$ pass insert Home/wifi
desktop$ pass insert Home/rpi
desktop$ pass insert Webfaction/panel

# make it a git repo
desktop$ pass git init

# export keys for laptop
desktop$ gpg2 --export parente@cs.unc.edu > /tmp/key.pub
desktop$ gpg2 --export-secret-key parente@cs.unc.edu > /tmp/key

# import keys on laptop
laptop$ scp desktop:/tmp/key* /tmp
laptop$ gpg2 --import /tmp/key.pub
laptop$ gpg2 --import /tmp/key

# trust keys on laptop
laptop$ gpg --edit-key parente@cs.unc.edu
...
gpg> trust
...
  5 = I trust ultimately
  m = back to the main menu

Your decision? 5
Do you really want to set this key to ultimate trust? (y/N) y
...
gpg> quit

# git clone to laptop
laptop$ git clone desktop/.password-store ~/.password-store

Update 2015-02-08: If you're using GPG Tools for Mac, the password prompt appears in a GUI dialog. If you prefer a curses command line prompt, add export PINENTRY_USER_DATA="USE_CURSES=1" to your interactive shell startup script.

Update 2014-09-03: I added the missing step of assigning ultimate trust to the imported key on the laptop.