CompuDrew.com

Introduction

There are many programs out there to store your passwords in. Here's another one!

If you're like me, you have FileMaker Pro and like it a lot. I made a flat-file database to hold my passwords many years ago, but a few years ago it was not enough, I needed a relational database.

But before I get any further I should say this database evolved to be able to store any private information. It can be used to not only store information about web site login IDs, but house alarms, where you keep important documents, and whatever else you want. Near the end of this article I discuss some security considerations you should keep in mind.

Relational Database?

In case you do not know what "relational database" means, here is a concrete example. Let's pretend you have a number of accounts at a free email service. You have a personal email account, a business email account, and an email account with a pseudonym.

With my relational password database, you just create one "record" for the name of the email service, but you can create 3 separate records associated with the main one.

Here is a screen shot to show you what I mean. In this screen shot you can see the main record is for the made up domain called "HooYa.moc." At this imaginary domain one can sign up for email accounts. Below it are records for each email account.

I have designed the database for more than just the casual user who wants to have more than one account at a web site.

I made it because when I was creating database driven web sites, I found I was creating lots and lots of passwords and accounts to access this and that. Accounts for the web server to access the database server, accounts for logging in to the web site as a highly privileged user, accounts for logging in as a regular user, email accounts that go with those accounts, and so many accounts my head was spinning and it only made sense for me to create this relational database. :-)

After using it a few years, I've streamlined a few things to take the sharp edges off, and make it fit my style better. I haven't made any radical changes in it for a while, so I guess I'm ready to share it.

Layout: List All Domains

I'll explain some of the features in this article. There are two layouts in the database. The first view is what a script shows you when it opens, all the domains. In the database you can download from CompuDrew.com (see sidebar for link) I've included some of the more popular web sites and their favicons for you already.

To access any of those records/accounts just click on the icon, the name, or the Info… button.

Once you accumulate lots of domains in your database, then you'll want to use the buttons at the top of the window. Here's a brief explanation.

• A-Z - sorts all the records in your database by name, alphabetically.
• My Domains - sorts all domains you've flagged as belonging to you.
• Modified - sorts all the domains according to which have been modified most recently.
• My Apps - sorts all the records you've flagged as passwords belonging to specific programs.
• Hardware - sorts all the records you've flagged as belonging to hardware devices. This can be used to keep track of house alarms, car alarms, other hardware pass codes.
• 3rd Pary - sorts all the records based on the "3rd Party" flag. This flag was created to differentitate between domains I own (like CompuDrew.com) and domains of others' like BarackObama.com.
• Personal - sorts all the records flagged as personal. The personal flag was created to store information of a personal nature, not necessarily having to do with computers.
• The aqueduct icon to the far left just shows the other layout, the view of an individual domain.

Layout: Accounts Specific to a Domain

Let's take a look at the other layout, the one named "Dids" which stands for Domain IDs.

I will consider most of it obvious, like the favicon and the name. There is also a pop up menu to the right of that where you can choose what kind of record/account this is for.

There is a row of three lines under the favicon and domain name. Click that and you go back to the list of all domains.

In the lower area of the database is where the relational database is shown. Here is where you create all the accounts and information associated with the main record. Each of those relational records has a number of fields you can set. In the simple example above, you can see that http is chosen as the protocol. But if you are keeping track of a MySQL connection, you can choose that from the pop up menu. Perhaps you are keeping tack of an email account, so you would choose either POP3 or SMTP, or something else, you can customize any of the menus easily.

The gid field is used to store the group or account privileges information, like Admin, or basic user, etc… The ID field should be obvious, and note I've put a mask over the password field so that if someone's looking over your shoulder, or taking surreptitious screen shots, or looking on via VNC, you have some protection against spying.

I experimented with tying together the id, password, and path fields, by making the "Path" label a button, and also the "k" letter a button, but it hasn't proved all that useful to me, so I haven't worked out all the bugs. Also, all the programs I use to access the Internet all have bookmarks and tend to store the passwords in the keychain, so sending login information from this database hasn't been needed.

Why make the database when the keychain is there? For a number of reasons. The first is, I made the precursor to this database before the keychain was in wide use. Secondly, the keychain is not really designed to hold tons of information, like I found myself needing, namely to store lots of account information specific to to specific domains. Finally, I've seen keychains become corrupt and I've had to toss them and recreate them; FileMaker Pro has proved more durable.

This database is in FileMaker Pro 7 format. I can't really afford to upgrade, so if you're using the latest version, or a version newer than 7, you will have to let FMP update the database. I see the latest version has the tool bar across the top, versus down the left side. This may mean the layout becomes really odd. There's not much I can do about that since I don't have the latest FMP.

In any case, I hope this is useful to you.

Securing Your Password Database

When you open it, log in as a guest. It might be a good idea to create an account using the FMP interface and give it a password, so that others can't open it up and get all your passwords. However, from what I've read, I wouldn't rely on that to keep out dedicated hackers, if they can get ahold of your database.

For much better security put this database on an encrypted disk image. Real security is always a matter of levels, not "one" specific thing; but as you may know, levels of security not only tend to make things more secure, but also makes accessing your own data a pain in the butt!

Tips for Inserting Tiny Icons

For many web sites you can download the favicon by putting "favicon.ico" right after the domain name in the address bar of your web browser. However, this won't always work, in those cases, just inspect the source of the web page and near the top you should find the path for the favicon.ico. Just copy that and paste it in your web browser address bar.

Also, there are quite a few web sites with icons you can download and use for your own personal use. Here are a few links:

• http://IconFactory.com/home - Been around for ages. Donated icons to MacWorld eons ago for web use.
• http://InterfaceLift.com/icons-mac/ - Formerly Xicons, and formerly Mac-only, but they've kept the flame burning.
• http://www.Apple.com/downloads/macosx/icons_screensavers/ - Database of icons and such that people have submitted to Apple.