Productivity : Use Keypass to keep track of your environment’s credentials,

Some use Excel, Others simply use text files to keep track of their passwords, but I use keepass .

It is simply a vault for your logins and passwords which you can unlock with a single password. However I use it also for auto-piloting my login procedure.

keepass main window

The whole idea is not to have to use a pool of passwords for all systems and also to auto-start you log-in procedure and save waring off your precious fingers in typing useless usernames and passwords.

In this article I will show how to use keepass to auto-login to:

• Putty
• WinScp
• Toad
• SQLPLUS
• SiebelTools
• FieZilla

And from the examples above you would be able to use it with any command line tool as well.

You could also use it for keeping track of your web site usernames ,passwords and URL’s

It is available on Windows, Mac, Linux, Android and iPhone.

The Main Idea.

The main Idea is to use the fields ; {TITLE} ,{USERNAME} and {PASSWORD} fields in the {url} field to properly adjust the command line .

you type in the server or database name in {TITLE}.

Add Keepass Entry

putty

Is an extremely popular terminal emulator used to access unix and other terminal systems. Type this in the URL text-box:

cmd://putty {USERNAME}@{TITLE} -pw {PASSWORD}

WinScp

Is a GUI tool to transfer files using SCP, FTP, SFTP … etc.  and use the URL:

cmd://winscp407.exe {USERNAME}:{PASSWORD}@{TITLE}

FieZilla

Another tool for accessing FTP and file transfer protocols.

cmd://"C:\Program Files\FileZilla FTP Client\filezilla.exe"  "sftp://{USERNAME}:{PASSWORD}@{TITLE}"

Toad

Is the tool for Database professionals , it wasn’t easy to find the proper command URL for it:

cmd://"C:\Program Files\Quest Software\Toad for Oracle\TOAD.exe" -c "{USERNAME}/{PASSWORD}@{TITLE}"

You could also use this to auto-load a file when Toad starts:

cmd://"C:\Program Files\Quest Software\Toad for Oracle\TOAD.exe" -c "{USERNAME}/{PASSWORD}@{TITLE}" -f "U:\my_daily_work_File_system_{TITLE}.sql"

SQLPLUS

The Oracle tool for SQL commands interactions.

cmd://sqlplus.exe {USER}/{PASSWORD}@{TITLE}

you have to set the PATH environment variable properly in order to be able to write “sqlplus.exe” and not “<full-path-oracle-bin>\sqlplus.exe”.

SiebelTools

If you are working with Siebel, then properly you use this tool many time during the day.

cmd://Z:\Siebel\8.1\Tools_1\BIN\siebdev.exe /c  "Z:\Siebel\8.1\Tools_1\BIN\enu\tools.cfg"  /d  {TITLE}/u {USERNAME} /p {PASSWORD} /s Z:\Siebel\8.1\Tools_1\SQLTEMPL\{TITLE}-SQL-TX.log

But the you have to adjust your tools.cfg file properly:

In the [DataSources] section you have to add an entry:
<whatever-system> = <system-name>

Add a new section :

[whatever-system]
 Docked                   = TRUE
 ConnectString            = <system-name>
 TableOwner               = <siebel-schema-name>
 DLL                      = sscdo90
 SqlStyle                 = OracleCBO
 MaxCachedCursors         = 16
 MaxCachedDataSets        = 16
 ReverseFillThreshold     = 100
 CaseInsensitive          = FALSE
 InsensitivityFactor      = 2
 FileSystem               = c:\Siebel81
 GatewayAddress           =
 EnterpriseServer         =
 CurrentSQLID             =
 MaxCursorSize            = -1
 PrefetchSize             = -1

In Summary:

More Features

• You could use Keepass for grouping and categorizing your Systems.
• You could right click and simply copy password or username into clipboard and paste it into your application directly. The password will be erased from the Clipboard after few seconds.
• I use Icons to identify the Protcol I’m using, for example all entries that utilizes FileZilla ,WinSCP or WS_FTP have the “Folder” Icon to identify that this is file transfer link.
• Use the keepass to auto-generate he password also.
• You could use other techniques for securing the access to your keepass database other than master password (like a key file or a computer username).
• I use Import and export in case I want to share some of the entries with my team members.
• Auto-typing feature is supported, but I never needed to use it. maybe it could be used with web forms … etc.

Please Tell me if you find out more tips in keepass.

Thank you for reading.