For the past couple of weeks, we’ve been working on the ability to perform backups of the Passwordstate database, and all the web files, right from within the Passwordstate application. In addition to this, and it’s been a long time coming (sorry), you can now perform in-place upgrades of Passwordstate – no longer do you need to uninstall and re-install Passwordstate every time there’s a new build released.

First we’ll start with the backups. You have the option of performing manual backups whenever you need, or you can set a regular schedule and let them run themselves. You have the following options available to you:

Backup Settings

• How many backups to keep on the file system
• The path to where you would like to store the backups (ideally should be stored on a different location other than your Passwordstate web or database server)
• Username and Password required for the backup (we’ll explain what permissions are required further below)
• Whether you want to enable a regular set-and-forget schedule for the backups to occur
• And finally, what time you would like the scheduled backups to begin, and how often you want a backup to occur.

Couple of screenshots to show you the status of backups, and also the Settings screen:

Backup Permissions
To allow backups to work through the Passwordstate web interface, you will need to specify an account (domain or Windows account), which has the following permissions:

• Permissions to write to the Backup path you’ve specified
• Permissions to stop and start the Passwordstate Windows Service on the web server
• Permissions to write to the Passwordstate folder.

In addition to this, you must configure the SQL Server service to use a domain or Windows account which has permissions to also write to the Backup Path. To do this, you need to open the ‘SQL Server Configuration Manager’ utility on your database server, click on ‘SQL Server Services’, and the specify and account as per the next screenshot:

In-Place Upgrades
A prerequisite to being able to perform in-place upgrades in version 6, is to ensure your backups are configured and working correctly. If they aren’t, you will not be able to perform in-place upgrades. There are to main processes for an upgrade:

Upgrade Web Files
Prior to performing the upgrade of the database, the following occurs:

• Passwordstate Windows Service is stopped
• Compresses and backup all the web files
• Backup up the database
• Download the latest build from the Passwordstate web site (there is an option to manually download the upgrade file, if for whatever reason Passwordstate is unable to do it itself i.e. proxy issues)
• Extract the latest build to a temporary folder
• Overwrite all the files, and clean up any old files
• Restart the Passwordstate Windows Service.

Upgrade Database
Once all the web files have been upgraded, you will be logged out of Passwordstate automatically, at which time you can log straight back in and finish the upgrade of the database. The reason the log out is required, is because modifying files in a IIS web site can cause sessions in IIS to be disrupted (ended).

We apologize it’s taken so long to come up with a better upgrade procedure, but as soon as version 6 is released, it should make upgrading to new builds a whole lot easier.

Regards
Click Studios

We’ve now introduced the feature in version 6 where you can link Password Lists to Templates, and control all of the settings from the Template itself.

With this feature it means you can control the settings for multiple Password Lists in the one location, and easily enforce some consistency across similar Password Lists.

Caution: In version 6 you can now configure the ‘Generic Fields’ to be of different field types i.e. text fields, date field, password fields, etc. If you link a Password List to a Template, and the Template has non-compatible generic field types, it will blank the data for these fields in the database. You will be prompted and reminded of this when linking Password Lists, but it’s something to be aware of.

When you link a Password List to a Template, it will appear on the Templates as per this screenshot (To link Password Lists to a Template, you simply select ‘Linked Password Lists’ from the Action drop-down menu):

Once linked, the majority of controls on the ‘Edit Password List’ will be disabled, and you will be notified at the top of the screen as to which Template the Password List has been linked to:

Today we released Build 5638 of Passwordstate, which includes a new feature where you can clone a Password Folder, and any Folders or Password Lists nested beneath it. This feature is very handy for keeping a consistent structure for storing all your passwords.

To clone a folder, you first need to click on it in the Navigation Tree, then click on the ‘Folder Options’ button at the top of the screen, and then you will see the ‘Clone Folder’ link. From here you have the following options available to you:

• Specify the new name of the folder to be cloned
• Choose whether you want to clone all Folders and Password Lists nested below the chosen folder, or just clone Folders only
• Choose what permissions you would like to apply to the new Folders and Password Lists – either clone the current permissions, apply permissions just for yourself, or don’t apply any permissions at all

When you have finished cloning the folder, it will place the structure in the root of the Navigation Tree. Standard processing occurs when cloning folders i.e. appropriate audit events are logged, and email notifications are sent informing users they have access to one or more new Password Lists. We’ve also provided a ‘Save & Clone Again’ button, so you can quickly repeat the process. Below is a screenshot from version 6 of Passwordstate, showing the options available to you.

Note: Cloning Password Lists will not clone any of the passwords contained within them – only settings, customisations and permissions will be cloned.

We hope you like this new feature, and please leave us some comments if you like.

Regards
Click Studios

When version 6 is released, you will notice a few enhancements we have made to the Generic Fields you can associated with Password Lists.

To start with, we have extended the number of Generic Fields from 3 to 10, and now the following Field Types are also available:

• Text Field – just a normal text field as you currently have in version 5 of Passwordstate
• Free Text Field – an unlimited text field for entering larger bodies of text
• Password – an encrypted password field, which is also salted in the database, and allows you mask the contents as per a normal Password field i.e. ******, and you can also copy to clipboard as per normal
• Select List – allows you to specify multiple fixed values, which shows as a drop-down list
• Radio Buttons – allows you to specify multiple fixed values, which shows as a Radio Button
• Date Picker – similar to the Expiry Date field, this one gives you a popup calendar for specifying date values

We hope you like this feature once version 6 is released, and below are a couple of screenshot for how you configure your Password Lists, and how it looks on an Edit Password screen.

Configure Generic Field Settings for a Password List

How the Edit Password Screen looks with Generic Fields

Regards
Click Studios

We’ve finished adding a new feature to Passwordstate 6 which is called User Account Policies. With this feature, you can specify multiple settings for User’s Preferences, their Password List Screen Options, and also their Home Page and Folder Screen Options.

Following is a couple of screenshots which shows each of the settings, as well as the alerts the user will see if a setting is applied – when policy settings are applied to a user’s account, the option is disabled on the screen so the user is unable to change it.

User Account Policy Settings Screenshot (click on the screenshot for a bigger picture)

User Account Policy User Alerts Screenshot

Because you’re able to ignore settings, is quite a flexible solution for creating different policies which can be applied to users accounts. Permissions can be applied directly to the User’s account, to members of a Security Group, or to all users of the system.

We’ve also added a feature called ‘Check for Conflicts’, and this feature will analyse and report any conflicting policies for a user’s account. Without performing this check, user’s and Security Administrator may be confused as to why certain settings have been applied to their account.

We hope you like this new feature once Version 6 of Passwordstate is available.

Regards
Click Studios

We’ve just added a small, but important feature in version 6 of Passwordstate called Allowed IP Ranges. This features allows you to restrict which IP addresses are allowed to browse to the Passwordstate web site, and can be specified in the following format:

Individual IP Address – 192.168.1.50
Entire Subnets – 192.168.1.*
Subnet Ranges – 192.168.1.50-192.168.1.254

In the event you make a mistake in specifying Allowed IP Ranges and lock yourself out of Passwordstate, you can always gain access via logging on directly to your web server, or via the Emergency Access account. Here’s a screenshot of where you can specify the settings:

Regards
Click Studios

As of today, we’ve finished implementing two-factor authentication in Passwordstate V6, using RSA’s SecurID solution. Once we have a beta of Version 6 available, we’ll be asking for testers of this functionality, as we’ve only been able to test using RSA Authentication Manager 7.1 SP4 Patch 22 – the Authentication Agent library we’re using is meant to be compatible with Authentication Manager 6.x, 7.x and the upcoming 8.x – due for release later this month.

Configuring Passwordstate to use SecurID is a fairly simple process, and we’ve written up specific documentation to assist customers with the initial configuration. Once done, you will be able to choose anyone of the following options:

• Secure access to Passwordstate using SecurID Authentication – this is for both installs of either Active Directory authentication, or forms based authentication
• Secure access to Passwordstate using both AD and SecurID Authentication – obviously only for AD users
• Secure access to Password Lists using SecurID Authentication

We’ve also added a new option called ‘If one of the SecurID Authentication options are selected, auto-populate the UserID field based on the current logged in user – domain suffix will be dropped if using Active Directory version of Passwordstate’. If your Passwordstate UserID’s are the same format as your SecurID User ID’s, then this makes it a little quicker to authenticate.

Now for some screenshots:

Secure access to Passwordstate using SecurID Authentication

Secure access to Passwordstate using both AD and SecurID Authentication

Secure access to Password Lists using SecurID Authentication

We hope you like this feature when version 6 is available.

We’ve finished adding two-factor authentication using Google’s Authenticator to version 6 of Passwordstate. Google Authenticator is great for smaller companies who can’t afford the investment required to internally host other two-factor authentication solutions such as RSA’s SecurID.

Configuring your Passwordstate account to use Google Authenticator, is quite a simple process:

• First intall Google Authenticator on your mobile device – Google Authenticator for Android, and Google Authenticator for iOS
• Visit the Preferences screen in Passwordstate, and click on the ‘Authentication Options’ tab
• Select the ‘Google Authenticator’ option from the Authentication dropdown list
• Generate a new barcode/secret key
• Scan the barcode into Google Authenticator on your mobile/cell device, or manually type in the secret key
• Click on the ‘Save’ button to save the secret key to your Passwordstate account.

Once you have successfully enabled Google Authenticator with Passwordstate and on your mobile/cell device, then you will be presented with the following login screen next time you visit Passwordstate.

You will now have a maximum of 60 seconds to copy the verification code from your mobile/cell device (image below), into Passwordstate. After 60 seconds, a new verification code will appear on your device.

We hope you like this new feature once version 6 of Passwordstate is released, and please leave us any comments you like regarding the feature.

Regards
Click Studios

Thought we’d share with you the new Navigation Menu System coming in Version 6 of Passwordstate, and what options are available to use with it.

So the tabs on the bottom left hand side of the screen are now gone, and replaced with a horizontal menu system at the bottom of the screen. By default, hovering over a menu item will cause it’s sub-menus to appear, as per the following screenshot:

If you’d prefer the sub-menu items do not appear when you hover over them, there’s a new option in the ‘Preferences’ area where you can choose to show them instead by clicking on them.

As a Security Administrator of Passwordstate, you can also control who is allowed to access the various menus and sub-menus. From the screen Administration -> System Settings ->Miscellaneous Tab, you can specify who can have access either by individual User Accounts, or Security Groups.

We hope you like this new navigation UI once version 6 is released.

Regards
Click Studios

This page will allow you to filter on any of the 58 current audit record types, by platform (web, mobile, API or Windows Service), and by various duration’s - 6 months through to 3 years. Once you’ve selected your options, hit the Refresh button and the graph will be redrawn.

We’ve also listed all the Audit Activities and the end of this post, and this list will grow as we develop more features in the API, and start to develop the mobile client.

Access Granted
Access Removed
Access Updated
All Passwords Exported
Audit Records Purged
Document Deleted
Document Updated
Document Uploaded
Document Viewed
Email Sent
Email Template Enabled
Email Template Disabled
Email Template Updated
Emergency Access Event
Failed API Call
Handshake Approval Requested
Login Attempt Failed
Login Attempt Succeeded
Password Added
Password Copied to Clipboard
Password Deleted
Password History Exported
Password History Retrieved
Password List Added
Password List Authentication
Password List Deleted
Password List Retrieved
Password List Updated
Password Restored
Password Retrieved
Password Screen Opened
Password Updated
Password Viewed
Passwords Exported
Reporting
Security Administrator Added
Security Administrator Removed
Security Administrator Role Updated
Security Group Added
Security Group Updated
Security Group Deleted
Tab Authentication
Template Access Granted
Template Access Removed
Template Access Updated
Template Added
Template Deleted
Template Updated
User Account Added
User Account Added to Security Group
User Account Disabled
User Account Enabled
User Account Updated
User Account Deleted
User Accounts Exported
User Removed From Security Group
UserName Copied to Clipboard
Windows Account Synchronization

Regards
Click Studios