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0 pointspiaste5y ago0 comments

Bitwarden only ever decrypts the password database on the client, and the login credentials you send to the server are only a hash of your actual encryption key.

In principle, you could store your Bitwarden database on a public torrent at no risk to your security :)

So, if you do trust the Bitwarden software in the first place, self-hosting it shouldn't be any more dangerous than using the managed service, because the server security isn't really a critical part of the defence model. And self-hosting allows you to build from source, if you're inclined to paranoia (Even though the worst a malicious server could do is delete your database).

That said, I have still bothered to set up strict fail2ban rules on my BW instance, because why not.

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dsissitka5y ago

> (Even though the worst a malicious server could do is delete your database).

Unless you use the web client, and a lot of Bitwarden's functionality is only available via its web client (including critical functionality like changing your master password).

mapgrep5y ago

Well that’s the thing. If I’m content to trust the client side hashing or encryption on the secrets why bother setting up my own server? Conversely, if there are nefarious things that can happen on the server to compromise the data without me knowing about it, then I trust neither myself (because I’d be a bad sysadmin) nor a third party (not knowing what they’re up to). Or if I do trust a third party just use 1Password.

Reading between the lines it sounds like being able to build from source or see and install the source gives some assurance you can’t get via third party and the strong files give some assurance over me being a bad sysadmin. That’s either a sweet spot or uncanny valley depending on your perspective. :)

piasteOP5y ago

> If I’m content to trust the client side hashing or encryption on the secrets why bother setting up my own server?

Not that much, given that basic accounts are free. I guess that in addition to the building from source option, self-hosted Bitwarden (or at least Bitwarden-rs) includes all enterprise features for free.

The two most useful ones are probably sharing selected passwords with other users / groups, and attaching encrypted files to logins.

I wouldn't bother setting up a server and domain solely for it, but if you already have a personal webserver with a reliable backup strategy, since Bitwarden_rs barely uses any resources and is super easy to install, you might as well throw it in.

That's my case - I was already running a personal Nextcloud and Fediverse instance, so adding Bitwarden was like five lines of docker-compose and four of Caddyfile.

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