KeeShare Syncing Through CloudKit Mirroring

[essandess]

KeeShare Syncing Through CloudKit Mirroring

I just migrated to KeePass(ium) from 1p and am very happy and impressed with the desktop and mobile integration through KeePassium. But one major missing capability I’ve yet to fix is syncing through KeePass’s KeeShare databases. I implemented a few KeeShare db’s on a shared iCloud Drive directory, used several devices to access the iCloud share and the result is terrible: failure to sync and an iCloud directory filled with 100’s of MB of sequentially named files that look like:

KeeShare Home.kbdx
KeeShare Home 1.kbdx Added by Me
KeeShare Home 2.kbdx Modified by Me
…
KeeShare Home 50.kbdx Added by Another

Yes, this isn’t KeePassium’s fault, it’s the way iCloud sharing works. Yes, you’ve addressed this issue many times before. I agree completely with your file-based model in the full control of owners.

But that does not imply that cloud-based syncing on iOS mobile devices must be completely broken, at least on the native shared iCloud platform. We’re all using KeePassium on iOS mobile devices. Mobile means mobile and these mobile devices need to rely on some cloud server for their data, and iCloud is right there. “Don’t hold it that way” can’t be the answer when there’s really only one way to hold it.

I see that a viable alternative to iCloud-based syncing is to set up syncthing on the desktop and mobile devices. Great, but that comes with its own issues: correct configuration on every device, opening up a port to the Internet on the desktop where the shared databases live, ideally a split-horizon DNS server on the LAN, another iOS app, and so forth.

It would be technically straightforward to adhere to KeePassium’s strict, local file based database approach, while at the same time creating a CloudKit-based database mirror through which items could be synced with others. This is essentially what syncthing does anyway. But it could be done in with native iCloud without all the extra configuration required.

Would you please consider adding the feature of native CloudKit-based mirroring of local databases for KeeShare syncing?

[essandess]

I implemented a Syncthing solution with Mõbius Sync handling the the database syncing. This provides the best of all worlds: file-based password management on all desktop and mobile devices, synced via Syncthing. And I also now have a very low cost peer-to-peer replacement for all the subscription-based SaaS file sharing solutions, so thank you @keepassium for prompting the necessity of implementing this. I’m very happy in my migration away from 1p and have improved several things by adopting KeePassium.

That said, I still believe that a mirrored CloudKit syncing solution is the obvious best choice because of its simplicity and availability. There is a great deal of complexity required for the Syncthing solution:

• A fixed desktop server that’s always available
• Specialized per-user Syncthing launchd plist configurations and file permissions to sync individual databases to the fixed Syncthing “server”
• Port forwarding on the router
• Decent packet filtering for the open port UDP and TCP 22000
• A registered domain name
• A fixed IP address or a dynamic ddclient configuration to update the domain register
• Ideally a split-horizon DNS server for devices on the LAN versus WAN
• Installing and configuring Syncthing on every single device
• Remembering to open Mõbius Sync every time you restart an iOS device

That’s a lot, and very, very complex. I know how to do all this stuff and already have most of it in place, so fine. But obviously a CloudKit-based syncing solution on Apple devices would greatly simply database syncing and make all this complexity unnecessary.

Additionally, you include iCloud Drive in the documentation on supported syncing sources and that’s true. But I’d ask you to add that shared iCloud Drive folders do not work for the reason stated above. This was a false start for me adopting KeePassium and took some time to determine what was broken about it.