README

A PHP command-line interface for storing encrypted AES-256 or AES-128 json data using an encryption key derived from a master password.

Install

To install, run the following command:

composer global require surgiie/vault-cli

Supported Storage Drivers

Local Filesystem

Supported Ciphers

aes-128-cbc
aes-256-cbc
aes-128-gcm
aes-256-gcm

Supported PBKDF Hashing Algorithms

sha256
sha512

Learn more - hash_pbkdf2

Getting Started

To get started with a new vault, run the following command:

vault new <name>

Configuration

Once you have a vault to work with, you can start using the cli. The cli reads a configuration from the ~/.vault/config.yaml file. This file will contain your vault's config and various other options for the cli to work with. For example, in order for the cli to know how to encrypt/decrypt your vault items, you will need to set the encryption options and register your vaults in the config file:

vaults:
  your-vault-name:
    algorithm: sha256
    cipher: aes-128-cbc
    driver: local
    iterations: 600000

Note - The ~/.vault/config.yaml file will be created for you when you run the vault new command and register your vault automatically.

Selecting a Vault

To select the vault the cli should interact with, use the vault use command:

vault use <your-vault-name>

Alternatively, you can manually update the use-vault option in the ~/.vault/config.yaml file:

use-vault: <your-vault-name>
vaults:
    your-vault-name:
        # ... your vault options

Storing Items

To store an item in your vault, run the item:new command:

vault item:new github_login --content="somepassword" --password="<your-encryption-password>"

This will store encrypted JSON data in the vault. When decrypted, the JSON structure for this example would be:

{
    "name": "github_login",
    "content": "some_password",
}

Loading Content From a File:

If you prefer to load the content for your vault item from a file, use the --content-file flag instead of --content to load the item content from a file:

vault item:new some_name --content-file="/path/to/some/file" --password="<your-encryption-password>"

Set New Item Content In Terminal Editor:

If you do not pass the --content or --content-file flag, you will be prompted to set the content by opening a temporary file a terminal editor (terminal-editor in your ~/.vault/config.yaml file) as you run the command. Once you close the terminal editor, the command will create the vault item.

Storing Extra Data

If you want to store extra data along with the vault item, you can pass any arbitrary key/value options to the command:

vault item:new SOME_NAME
        --content="some secret content" \
        --password="<your-encryption-password>" \
        --something-else="example"
        --extra-data="foo"

Note: There are options reserved for the command itself and cannot be used for extra data, you can see those listed with the --help menu.

This will store a json file with your content encrypted, but when decrypted the structure for this example would be:

{
    "name": "SOME_NAME",
    "content": "some secret content",
    "something-else": "example",
    "extra-data": "foo"
}

Load Content For JSON Keys From Files:

If you want to load the value for a specific key in the JSON data, use the --key-data-file option in the format <key>:<path>.

For example, to load the content for the extra-data key, the command would be:

vault item:new \
        some_name \
        --content="some secret content" \
        --password="<your-encryption-password>" \
        --key-data-file="extra-data:/path/to/file/with/content"

This will store a json file with your content encrypted, but when decrypted the structure for this example would be:

{
    "name": "SOME_NAME",
    "content": "some secret content",
    "something-else": "example",
    "extra-data": "Whatever content was in the file"
}

Categorizing Vault Items With Namespaces

Vault items are grouped/categorized in the default namespace. Namespaces are simply directories/folders or filters that vault items will go into. Namespaces are a good way to categorize and filter items based on their use cases. To specify a custom namespace for an item, use the --namespace flag:

vault item:get some-item --namespace=other

Use ENV Variables For Passwords

If you do not want to pass the --password option to the command, you can set the VAULT_CLI_PASSWORD environment variable with your encryption password. The cli will use this as the default password for all commands. When working with multiple vaults, you can set the VAULT_CLI_<vault-name>_PASSWORD environment variable to set the password for a specific vault. If not set, the cli will fallback to the global VAULT_CLI_PASSWORD environment variable.

Retrieve Items From Vault

To output the content of an item, use the item:get command:

vault item:get some_item_name

This will output the decrypted content out.

Remove Items From Vault

Items maybe removed from the selected vault with the item:remove command:

vault item:remove --name="some_item_name"

Note The --name option maybe passed multiple times to remove several items in a single command call.

Retrieve Full JSON

By default, only the content field is printed to the terminal. To print the entire vault item JSON, run the command with the --json flag:

vault item:get some_item_name --json

Reencrypting Vault Items

To reencrypt all items in the vault with a new password, use the reencrypt command:

vault reencrypt --old-password=<old-password> --password=<new-password>

Rencrypting With New Encryption Options

If you are updating encryption options, such as switching hashing algorithms or changing iterations, you can overwrite configuration options with the following command line options:

vault reencrypt
    # old options to decrypt the items first
    --decrypt-algorithm=sha256 \
    --decrypt-iterations=100000 \
    --old-password=<old-password>
    # new options to encrypt the items with
    --algorithm=sha512 \
    --iterations=210000 \
    --cipher=aes-256-cbc \
    --password=<your-new-master-password>

Note - This command will automatically save your new options to the ~/.vault/config.yaml file.

Copy to item content clipboard

To copy a vault item's content json key to the clipboard, use the --copy flag:

vault item:get some_item_name --copy

To copy a specific key from the json, simply pass the json key to the --json-key option along with the --copy flag:

vault item:get some_name --copy --json-key=some-key

To copy the full json payload, set the --json-key option to * to specify all keys in the json payload to be copied to the clipboard. For example:

vault item:get some_item_name --copy --json-key="*"

Note: The default binary program used for this is copy.exe on windows/WSL2 and xclip on linux. Both of these are assumed to be installed. If you want to use a custom command to copy the vault item to clipboard set the VAULT_CLI_COPY_COMMAND environment variable with the :value: placeholder. e.g someprogram :value:.

Copying to Clipboard in Docker

The above method only works if you are running the cli on your host machine. If you are running the cli in a container, you will need to use a different method to copy to the clipboard manually since the clipboard is not shared between your host and the docker container. You can store the output of the vault item:get command to a variable and then pipe it to the clipboard program. For example:

output=$(vault-cli item:get example --password=example); echo $output | clip.exe
output=$(vault-cli item:get example --password=example); echo $output | xclip -sel clip

output=$(vault-cli item:get example --json-key="some-key" --password=example); echo $output | clip.exe
output=$(vault-cli item:get example --json-key="*" --password=example); echo $output | xclip -sel clip

Exporting Vault Item Content to Env Files

To export the content field of vault items to an env file, use the export:env-file command. For example:

vault export:env-file --export="some-item-name" --export="some-other-item-name"

This will export the vault item values to a .env file in the current directory

In the above example, your .env file would have the following variables written:

SOME_ITEM_NAME="The content"
SOME_OTHER_ITEM_NAME="The other content"

Note This will append to an existing .env file or create one if it doesn't exist, and overwrite any variables that previously exist. By default, this will add/create to .env in the current directory. To specify a custom name/path, use the --env-file option.

Aliasing/Custom Env Names

If the names of the vault items are not the ones desired for the .env file, you can use aliases by using the <vault-item-name>:<env-var-name> format when passing the --export options. For example:

vault export:env-file --export="some-item-name:SOME_CUSTOM_NAME" --export="some-other-item-name:SOME_OTHER_CUSTOM_NAME" will generate the .env file with the custom env names instead of names of the vault items:

SOME_CUSTOM_NAME="The content"
SOME_OTHER_CUSTOM_NAME="The other content"

Including Other/Non-Vault Env Variables In Export.

If you want to include some other env variables in your env file that are not your vault items in the exported .env file, you can use the --include option:

vault export:env-file --export="some-item-name" --include="SOME_ENV_VARIABLE_NAME:THE_VALUE

In this example, SOME_ENV_VARIABLE_NAME="THE_VALUE" will be included in your exported .env file.

Run With Docker:

If you don't have or want to install php, you can run use the provided docker script to spin up a container which you can utilize the cli with.

Install Docker Script:

cd /tmp

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/surgiie/vault-cli/master/docker

chmod +x ./docker

mv ./docker /usr/local/bin/vault

vault --help

Note - Your ~/.vault directory will be copied to the container. Your current env variables will also be passed to the container. The ~/.vault directory will also be copied back to your host machine after you execute a command. This is so any changes made to the ~/.vault directory in the container are persisted on your host machine and things are kept in sync.

surgiie / vault-cli

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