How to migrate pass to other operating system?

[Robert Ames]

Run the following commands on your original system:

# review the man pages, see the environment variables that might impact your usage
$ man --pager=cat pass | grep PASSWORD_STORE
 
# check your local environment for details of anything you might have changed
$ env | grep PASSWORD_STORE

# get a rough idea of the most important files related to your password store
# (assuming default directories, etc)
$ du -sh .password-store/ .gnupg/

PasswordStore is "just" files in a directory that are encrypted by gpg:

$ gpg --decrypt ~/.password-store/rames/example.com.gpg
>>> gpg: encrypted with 4096-bit RSA key, ID XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX, created 20XX-XX-XX
>>>      "Robert Ames (20XX-ubuntu-XXXXX) <ramses0 at yahoo.com>"
ExamplePassword
username: example at example.com

...you should just be able to bundle up the directory and transfer it to your new system:

$ tar -czvf password-bundle.tgz ~/.password-store
$ tar -czvf gpg-bundle.tgz ~/.gnupg

Transfer, untar (must use `tar` / `*.tgz` in order to preserve permissions!  sometimes gpg/ssh are picky about that):
 
$ tar -xvf password-bundle.tgz gpg-bundle.tgz

...usually "dotfiles" (files that begin with a '.' period) are hidden from directory listings by default.

Verify they were transferred correctly via "ls -a" or "find":

$ ls -la ~/.password-store ~/.gnupg
$ find ~/.password-store -type f ; find ~/.gnupg -type f

Verify you can still use gpg directly to manipulate them (you may need `apt install password-store gpg` or `apt list | grep ^gpg` or similar)

$ gpg --decrypt ~/.password-store/rames/example.com.gpg
>>> gpg: encrypted with 4096-bit RSA key, ID XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX, created 20XX-XX-XX
>>>      "Robert Ames (20XX-ubuntu-XXXXX) <ramses0 at yahoo.com>"
ExamplePassword
username: example at example.com

...any problems here, you'll need to make sure you figure your gpg-keys out (~/.gnupg).

Then you should be able to run `pass ls | grep ...`, `pass show ...` and verify it's working well for you.

Also remember to keep track of your `~/.ssh` keys, or be prepared to re-create and re-distribute new ones.

Best of luck!

 --Robert


On Tuesday, June 27, 2023 at 05:35:30 PM CDT, Csanyi Pal <csanyipal at gmail.com> wrote: 





Hi,

I have installed password-store on my Xubuntu operating system.

I must to migrate to the other operating system, namely Ubuntu on an 
other machine.

How can I do that?

-- 
Best, Paul Csányi