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5 <title>KeePassX Quick-start Guide</title>
9 <h1>KeePassX Quick-start Guide</h1>
11 This guide helps you to manage your
12 passwords efficiently and securely with KeePassX.
18 After starting KeePassX for the first time, you
19 are presented with the main window with
20 no open database file. If you have used KeePassX
21 (or KeePass Classic on Windows) previously, you can
22 open your existing database. Otherwise we begin
23 with creating a new password database.
26 <a name="database_create" />
27 <h2>Creating a new password database</h2>
29 KeePassX stores your password entries into
30 a password database file when the it's not running.
31 To create a new password database, click the
32 <span class="gui">"New Database"</span>
33 icon on the program toolbar (it is the first icon from the
37 Second, you need to set the <b>master key</b> for the
38 password database. This key is used to encrypt (ie. lock)
39 the password database so it cannot be read by anybody
40 else but you. The master key can be a password
41 or a key file or both.
42 If you check both, you must provide both the password
43 and the key file to every time you want to unlock the database.
46 If you decide to use a password,
47 <a href="http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/tips/ST04-002.html">
48 choose and protect it carefully</a> <img src="external.png" />.
49 The password should be strong, ie. long enough
50 (at least 8 characters) and preferably contain lower and
51 uppercase characters, numbers and special characters (e.g. !#?).
52 You should also memorize the password well, because
53 if you forget it, there is no way retrieving it later
54 from the locked database. You will be asked
55 to give the password twice to ensure that
56 there is no typing errors in the password.
59 The key file can be any file on your computer, e.g. a picture or
61 You can also create a randomly-generated key file by first
62 selecting the key file check box and clicking
63 <span class="gui">"Generate Key File..."</span>.
64 You can store the key file for example on a USB memory stick,
65 to keep it with you everywhere.
68 <a name="password_add" />
69 <h2>Adding password entries</h2>
71 After you have created or opened a database, you
72 can add password entries to the database.
73 A password entry essentially consists of a title,
74 user name and password. It may have other entries
75 as well, such as URL (Internet link) and comments.
76 To add a new password entry, select a group from
77 the list on the left first, then
78 click the <span class="gui">
79 "Add New Entry"</span> icon on the program toolbar.
82 In the "New Entry" dialog you can enter
83 the information you want to into respective text boxes.
84 If you are creating a new account to e.g. a web forum,
85 you can use the password generator to generate strong
86 random passwords for you.
89 <a name="database_save" />
90 <h2>Saving the database</h2>
92 If you have added or edited entries in your database,
93 they are not automatically save to the database file by default.
94 You can save the database by clicking the <span class="gui">
95 "Save Database"</span> icon.
99 enable <span class="gui">"Automatically save database
100 after every change"</span> option from the
101 <span class="gui">"Extras"</span> >
102 <span class="gui">"Settings..."</span> >
103 <span class="gui">"General (2)"</span> page.
104 (On OS X, the page is found from
105 <span class="gui">"KeePassX"</span> (Application menu) >
106 <span class="gui">"Preferences"</span>.)
109 <a name="database_open" />
110 <h2>Opening a database</h2>
112 By default, on next startup, KeePassX opens a
113 <span class="gui">"Enter Master Key"</span>
114 dialog for the last used password database. If you wish
115 to open another password database, click
116 <span class="gui">"Cancel"</span>
117 and click <span class="gui">"Open Database"</span> icon
118 on the program toolbar and select the wanted password
119 database file from the file system. You can, of course,
120 do this at any point when the KeePassX main window is active.
123 <a name="password_edit" />
124 <h2>Editing and removing password entries</h2>
126 If you wish to edit a password entry, you can do
127 so by double-clicking on the entry title,
128 or by selecting the entry and then clicking the
129 <span class="gui">"View/Edit Entry"</span> icon
130 on the program toolbar.
133 To delete a password entry, first select the
134 entry and click <span class="gui">"Delete Entry"</span> icon
135 on the program toolbar or hit <tt>Ctrl-D</tt> (<tt>Cmd+D</tt> on OS X)
139 <a name="password_copy" />
140 <h2>Copying password (and user name) to the clipboard</h2>
142 You can copy the currently selected password by hitting <tt>Ctrl-C</tt>
143 (<tt>Cmd-C</tt> on OS X) and user name with <tt>Ctrl-B</tt> (<tt>Cmd-B</tt>
144 on OS X) on the keyboard. Then you can hit <tt>Ctrl-V</tt>
145 (<tt>Cmd-V</tt> on OS X) to paste the password or username
146 to any program that supports pasting from the clipboard.
149 <a name="autotype" />
150 <h2>Setup Auto-Type (currently Linux only)</h2>
152 <b>Auto-Type</b> is a feature that allows you to e.g. log in
153 to web page by hitting only one key combination.
154 KeePassX does the rest of the typing for you. Auto-Type reads
155 the title of currently active window on your screen
156 and matches it to the configured database entries.
157 If a matching window title is found from the password
158 database, it executes a predefined key sequence
159 (by default your username, <tt>TAB</tt>, password, <tt>ENTER</tt>) in
160 the active window. This feature is currently available
161 in the Linux version only.
164 To enable Auto-Type, first go to
165 <span class="gui">"Extras"</span> >
166 <span class="gui">"Settings..."</span> >
167 <span class="gui">"Advanced"</span> page
168 and set the <span class="gui">"Global Auto-Type Shortcut"</span>
169 by clicking the text box and typing the desired
170 keyboard shortcut (e.g. <tt>Ctrl-Shift-N</tt>).
171 Click <span class="gui">"OK"</span> to exit the dialog.
174 Then, for example, open the web page where you
175 want to be able to log in with Auto-Type. Let's
176 for example open Google.com into Firefox and
177 try to do automated search with Auto-Type. Go
178 to Google.com in Firefox and you'll notice
179 that your window title is now "Google - Mozilla Firefox"
182 Now, create new password entry, that
183 contains user name "test".
184 Then, click the small <span class="gui">"Tools"</span>
185 button at the bottom of the <span class="gui">"New Entry"</span>
186 dialog, and select <span class="gui">"Auto-Type: Select target window"</span>
187 Select "Google - Mozilla Firefox" from the dropdown menu and
188 click <span class="gui">"OK"</span>. You should see now a new
189 line in the <span class="gui">"Comment:"</span> box, which reads:<br/><br/>
191 <tt>Auto-Type-Window: Google - Mozilla Firefox</tt><br/><br/>
193 Now you have associated that window title to this entry.
196 Finally, let's customize the Auto-Type key sequence
197 to just enter your username and hit <tt>ENTER</tt>.
198 Click again <span class="gui">"Tools"</span>
199 and select <span class="gui">"Auto-Type: Customize Sequence"</span>.
200 Now there's another new line in the <span class="gui">"Comment:"</span> box,
201 which reads:<br/><br/>
203 <tt>Auto-Type: {USERNAME}{TAB}{PASSWORD}{ENTER}</tt><br/><br/>
205 Change this line to:<br/><br/>
207 <tt>Auto-Type: {USERNAME}{ENTER}</tt><br/><br/>
209 So that it would just type in your username and hit <tt>ENTER</tt>.
210 Click <span class="gui">"OK"</span> to save the entry.
213 Now, you can test the Auto-Type by returning to the
214 Firefox window and hitting the global Auto-Type keyboard
215 shortcut (e.g. <tt>Ctrl-Shift-N</tt>) in it.
216 If everything went correctly, KeePassX should now enter
217 "test" in the search box and start the search query
218 by hitting <tt>ENTER</tt>.
221 By modifing the Auto-Type key sequence you can tailor
222 Auto-Type to suit almost every web login page you'll enter.