If you have a lot of online accounts and you don’t want to be constantly bothered with the difficulty of remembering passwords, credit card numbers and authentication data, you might want to try out a password manager.
Appdoh offers the Vaultwarden password manager, a cross-platform and open-source password manager that helps you login anywhere safely and securely. It is completely free to deploy, host, and use a single instance of Vaultwarden on Appdoh.
An account with Appdoh is required. Sign in to Appdoh.com, or click here to register for a free account.
Step 1: Once signed in, go to Marketplace, select Productivity under Categories, then select Vaultwarden.
Step 2: Click the Install Now button located at the top-right corner.
Step 3: Review your app configuration. You may enter a name to identify your app, select the workspace and version for your app, where applicable. Then click Continue.
Step 4: Your app will be created, but not yet running. Click Deploy to run your app.
Give it a minute for your app’s status to change into running…
And access your password manager by clicking on the URL under Homepage.
You should see a page which looks like this:
Congratulations, now you have your very own password manager running, all done within 4 steps!
Click on the next tutorial to setup Vaultwarden for the first-time.
Now that you’ve set up your very own Vaultwarden password manager, this article covers 4 tips on setting up your account for the first time in a secure manner.
In a nutshell, these 4 tips are:
Creating your first account.
Disabling sign ups from the admin console.
Installing the Bitwarden mobile app.
Installing the Bitwarden browser extension.
If you haven’t set up Vaultwarden, read the previous article to setup one on Appdoh.com in 4 steps, for free!
Tip #1: Creating your first account
To create your account for the first time, from your Vaultwarden homepage click Create Account.
You should see this page:
Fill in your email address, name, and master password twice. Setting a master password hint is optional, in case you need assistance remembering your master password. Once done, click Create account.
You will be taken back the homepage, where you may proceed to sign in with your newly-created credentials. That’s it for setting up your first account.
Tip #2: Disabling signups from the admin console
From your installed app in Appdoh, locate the second URL labelled Admin Page, and click on the link to open in a new window.
You will be brought to a page which looks like this:
Here, you will be invited to enter an admin token.
The admin token can be found in your Appdoh installation page. In Appdoh, click on the Variables tab, and click the copy button under the label ADMIN_TOKEN. This action will copy the value of your admin token to the clipboard without revealing its value to anyone sitting near you.
Go back to your Vaultwarden admin page and paste the copied token. Then click Enter.
Once in, under General settings, locate Allow new signups.
Uncheck this checkbox. This action will prevent new users from signing up on your server. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click Save to persist your changes.
With that, whoever tries to sign up for an account on your Vaultwarden server will be greeted with this error:
Tip #3: Downloading the Bitwarden mobile app
The official Bitwarden client is 100% compatible with your Vaultwarden server. This means you can access your passwords securely on your mobile phones and tablets! There are reports of Bitwarden client on the Apple Watch, so watch out for that.
Click on the respective link below for the type of your mobile device:
Once downloaded, the immediate step is to configure your app to connect to your Vaultwarden server. Open the app and look out for the gear icon, usually at the top-right corner of the sign-in screen.
Under Self-hosted environment, then Server URL, enter the URL as given in your Vaultwarden app in Appdoh, under Homepage. Then click Save.
Now you can sign in with your newly-created account and access your vault on your mobile phone.
Tip #4: Installing the Bitwarden browser extension
Having a Bitwarden browser extension installed in your browser is a great way to autofill sign in forms in just a couple of clicks.
If you’re using Safari, search for Bitwarden in Safari Extensions. It should show up as the first result.
If you’re using Safari, search for Bitwarden in Safari Extensions.
Once installed, the extension button should appear on the browser toolbar. If not, configure your extensions. For example, in Chrome you can pin the Bitwarden extension on the toolbar.
Click the Pin button to force the Bitwarden extension to be visible on the toolbar.
Click on the Bitwarden extension button. Just like the configuration we did for your mobile device, before signing-in for the first time the server needs to be configured.. Click on the Settings icon, usually located at the top-left corner.
The Settings icon.
Under Self-hosted environment, then Server URL, enter the URL as given in your Vaultwarden app in Appdoh, under Homepage. Then click Save. Sign in to your self-hosted vault using the same credentials created in Tip #1.
Now you can access your vault seamlessly on your mobile phone and web browser.
Bonus tip: enable biometrics authentication so that you can simply unlock your vault with Face ID or fingerprint!
