How to Install Bitwarden on Ubuntu 20.04 - Self Hosting a Password Manager

[@glen4cindy]

This was an awesome video and was a great resource that helped me get my own self-hosted Bitwarden Server up and running. I did not find it necessary to do the steps starting at 10:12 that describe the steps for setting up a reverse proxy. However, I'm pretty sure that's how mine is operating. I can access my vault from anywhere.

[@n3tfury]

That's interesting. From what I understand you need to have a reverse proxy set up or some sort of tunnel (cloudflare, etc.)

[@MrSevenEleven]

Those steps are for setting up the ssl encryption, which isn't technically necessary

[@glen4cindy]

I'm watching this video again because I'm in the process of setting up a new Bitwarden server. I'm seeing at 6:15 you are installing Bitwarden as yourself and as root. The TL:DR directions in the install section specifically say "Do not install Bitwarden as root." They also recommend using a dedicated bitwarden service account but I see you've used your account here. Does that cause issues as the directions suggest?

[@akashrajpurohit97]

Great video, I wanted to ask one thing, how can we setup automatic backups for the database created by Bitwarden on our local server. This would be needed in case where we are auto generating passwords for sites (which we would not remember) and our local server crashes for some reason or data gets corrupted.

[@TechGuides]

Havent really thought about an automated solution for that. Im currently simply saving an (encrypted) backup on my local disk..

[@akashrajpurohit97]

@@TechGuides Just want to clarify, when you mean you store encrypted file to local you mean "exporting the vault from the app in json form and storing that on some Backups folder maybe" Or is there any other process from the self hosted server solution?

[@TechGuides]

Exactly!

[@alex.wallau]

Hi my friend. Great tutorial! I just finished installing Bitwarden OnPremises. I opened the URL to create the first user, but when I clicked the “Create account” button nothing happened. If I try using the Windows app, a error apear “Failed to fetch”. Do you know what it could be? Thank you in advance.

[@xTheShady1x]

How much resources would you allocate for installing Bitwarden? 1/2/4 core? 1/2/4 GB RAM? How much HDD space?

[@desertshadow72]

I don't know but generally, docker is pretty lightweight

[@imanator1819]

Fantastic video my guy! However I am having trouble getting bitwarden to work behind the Wildcard Certificate that we created in the video card you had on your nextcloud video. Not sure what I did worng but it comes up with an internal service error from apache.

[@JPEaglesandKatz]

think you forgot one important step.. the e-mail option.. Mandatory if you want others (say family members to have access since it uses e-mail verification)... setting up bitwarden is easy, getting the e-mail verification to work is another story

[@mazidCalas]

thanks man.... Great work

[@emodepo4701]

do you have any suggestions to make a backup self hosted instance in case the first one is down?

[@theocerutti7385]

But, if you disable ssl in the config.yml why do we need to specifiy cert.pem and privkey.pem ? (if we disable ssl, the default.conf of the nginx doesn't even use these paths)

[@garyiredale3929]

Yeah I thought the very same thing.

[@GT-yv4fc]

I have a Nextcloud instance over a LAMP server, if I install docker alongside LAMP would there be any issues?

[@pipeliner8969]

Great Explanations!

[@yourpcmd]

Question. Is this install for a single user or can you have multiple users create an account, such as co-workers, family members, etc.?

[@TechGuides]

You can have as many user accounts as you want, but the free version sadly does not allow to share passwords with each other...

[@poke6753]

I have installed everything and can access my bitwarden but when it comes to the ssl and https it is not working i followed all the steps from this video and the video dedicated to it but can't get it to work?

[@martynpage4823]

Great video...but what about trackers in android apps.....

[@TechGuides]

what do you mean? you can connect to your self hosted instance from android too!

[@martynpage4823]

@@TechGuides there are two app trackers

[@TechGuides]

what do you mean by app trackers?

[@martynpage4823]

@@TechGuides sorry you should not have to ask..

[@martynpage4823]

@@TechGuides This guy might be biased but have a look at about 15 minutes into the video and give me your view..kzbin.info/www/bejne/oqKXiH2VopmpjKc

[@shanewilliams2956]

I like your video... I am having a problem though, bitwarden is not getting deployed in Docker... When I try to deploy stack manually using the .yml file I get some error about a env file... any ideas?

[@the_rewster4120]

This video is outdated. It will not work if you follow these steps.

[@eljodinkaki3018]

my problem is that i can't get the e-mail configuration set. i have tried everything in config but to no avail. is there a solution?

[@candyxxy]

So I have set everthing up like you showed in the video but I only can access Bitwarden over http

[@TechGuides]

Yes, you will need a reverse proxy in front of Bitwarden which terminates an SSL connection from outside like shown in this video and the follow up to this: kzbin.info/www/bejne/aZS6dph6jbmihKc

[@pipeliner8969]

Stupid question: If I selfhost Bitwarden, do I need to keep my server on all the time? Otherwise I can't connect to the database right?

[@TechGuides]

Yes, sorry for the super late response ;)

[@pipeliner8969]

@@TechGuides no worries. I started with a subscription on their server and will probably migrate everything to my own one as soon as I am ready

[@brenannsap1634]

where is the written tutorial on the blog when you search for bitwarden nothing is found it be nice if someone put the url to it in the comments

[@TechGuides]

Haven't finished it because of some issues - its done now: techguides.yt/guides/install-bitwarden-password-manager-on-ubuntu-20-04/

[@madnoizemusik]

hey i have a problem to create a account. i click on the submit button but nothing happens no loading etc :(

[@nathbrouillette]

Same here !! Have you found a solution ?

[@madnoizemusik]

No

[@Maxlo158]

@@madnoizemusik U probably haven't forced HTTPS on your server

[@cenubit]

If you install bitwarden in docker and everythink value is in docker. How can you be sure that the values will not disappear? docker is a bad solution if the value is stored inside them.

[@TechGuides]

You literally can't install most PW managers without docker. Its not a bad salutation as long as you backup your shit ;)

[@cenubit]

@@TechGuides The Docker for backup is shit solution. I think better is using K8s + Persistent vol. And make Backup in NFS/iSCSI Storage layer.

[@cenubit]

​@@TechGuides Ok. I try to install it. It is incomprehensible why you chose apache. Nginx is tre best choice for my. Ok I install it according to your method. But I canot createaccount. If I view docker -a I see every max 1m restarted bitwarden/admin docker. It doesn't see anything special in the log file.

[@mikay971]

@@cenubit he didnt say backup in docker...

[@desertshadow72]

Thank you!

[@TechGuides]

You're welcome!

[@evanflowers3528]

where do i find my SSL cert and SSL key?

[@TechGuides]

/etc/letsencrypt/live/

[@henrylawson430]

If you don't trust other companies with your data, why do you trust a precompiled binary or a docker from another company? This is something I struggle with. I don't see the difference. If the company is really that dodgy, then surely they can have malicious code in your self hosted installation?

[@TechGuides]

You can check the code of bitwarden if you want. Docker just facilitates the install nothing pre-compiled there...

[@skarabei2303]

Hi I can't create new account.This is the error after submit ERROR Error: Uncaught (in promise): TypeError: this.subtle is null

[@mavchb]

If Bitwarden is only available in my LAN. Will the App cache the vault content?

[@crixi__]

I'm surprised you're using chrome, but you do you. What I really dislike however is how you almost advertise its usage. I'm sure you're already aware of how it's harmful to the Internet by dominating it and crushing browser diversity?

[@TechGuides]

Actually I'd argue quite the opposite when it comes to being harmful for the Internet. A lot of technology we take for granted was established thanks to Google. However this video was not about Chrome anyways - the Bitwarden extension is available for any browser as far as I know. Im also open to browser suggestions!

[@crixi__]

@@TechGuides Interesting. I was referring to this video from TechAltar kzbin.info/www/bejne/e32momlpa5pln8k whom you probably know. Maybe give it a view and tell me what you think? :)

[@TechGuides]

All pretty anecdotal, currently all the "broken" stuff works without any issues in Firefox. And honestly I think its quite obvious that Google products work better / get more frequent updates in Google browsers. Don't think Firefox would do it different if they developed a video platform tbh

[@crixi__]

@@TechGuides Hey, thanks, thats good to hear! Yes, ofc they're allowed to work a little better in chrome, no big deal. Even if the roles were flipped, it would be an equally bad thing if Mozilla was having a browser monopoly. I think browser diversity is a thing we want, regardless of who is in the lead, don't you think?

[@Bountyhunter411]

@@crixi__ How is he going to fix browser diversity. You also may not realize that the majority of browsers run with the chromium back-end. which is what chrome is based off.

[@Cantakor]

Es wäre hilfreich gewesen vorher zu erwähnen, dass dieser Apache Kram nicht notwendig ist in einer local umgebung. Ich habe all Schritte genau so gemacht und kann nun nicht per Web zugreifen. Port 8080 und 443 sind zu....

[@TechGuides]

Verstehe ich nicht ganz, möchtest du nun aus dem Web oder nicht zugreifen? Was klappt nicht? Du musst ziemlich sicher die beiden Ports in deinem Router freigeben damit es von aussen funktioniert!

[@Cantakor]

@@TechGuides ich möchte die Lösung nur im local Netz verwenden. Ich komm zwar per http drauf, aber https fehlt. Ansonsten bekomme ich fehler wie "n is null " beim Festlegen des Masterkennworts und port 443 ist über test-netconnection (powershell) zu, ufw ist auch schon deaktiviert. Welcher Schritt ist das mit der HTTPS einrichtung im Video?