dasupradyumna / Password-Manager

A C++ password manager application, with cross-platform support and using C++17 standard. -- under development --

Password Manager

Abstract

A cross-platform C++-17 project for storing and retrieving user credentials for various online and offline platforms. Below are the development phases -

1. Console-based UI
2. Extending Record
3. File encryption & Data hashing
4. GUI support
5. Optimization (Data structures and Pipeline)
6. Multiple users and Network support

Dependencies

NCurses

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Phase 1 : Console-based UI

Every credential is stored as a record in the database at runtime. The database is loaded from (or saved to) a file that is generated and used by the application. All user-supported operations are performed on the runtime database in memory. Records are objects of the Record class.
[ 2 Sep 2022 - ongoing ]

Features TODO

• Implement application, screens and actions for moving between screens
• Add behavior to "Delete" option in "Select" screen
• Add path to save directory as an option in "Settings" screen
• Implement database, handle passing from "Select" screen to "Database" screen
• Read from and write to the database (which is linked to a save file)
• Move databases (core and display) to application, pass around with references
• Add a global storage for the application to share data between screens
• Abstract away actions and their behavior (currently mixed in with display)
• Per-field input validation during input and overall entry check before saving
• Handle varying terminal size
• Number of entries per page in database screen / scrolling (settings)
• Consider separating "Delete" screen to derive from "Select" screen
• Different threads for display and user input
• Enable clipboard usage within the application

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Phase 2 : Extending Record

Adding more types of records to Record class for greater input flexibility to the user. A blank record type also to be added, where the user can input both the key name and the value name for the data key-value pairs, as they desire.

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Phase 3 : File encryption & Data hashing

Saving the runtime database to the storage file as plain text is extremely unsafe in terms of security, since anyone with access to this file has knowledge of all saved credentials. The storage file should be encrypted before saving and decrypted before loading. By itself, this is insufficient because access to the public key can open up the encrypted file and leak the data. For this, we hash the vital part of the credentials before encryption, possibly with added salt for more security.

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Phase 4 : GUI support

Convert the current TUI to a user-friendly GUI; with GLFW, ImGUI or Qt.

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Phase 5 : Optimization (Data structures and Pipeline)

Use Trie or Red-Black trees for the runtime database, to support efficient sorting, filtering and labeling.

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Phase 6 : Multiple users and Network support

Add infrastructure for multiple user logins, and support for online cloud storage or remote access.

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