Hey, I am Frank from Germany, and I am new to Vaultwarden.
I am a user, not a developer
I need help to understand the Vaultwarden logic and use it better in the future.
I used ENPASS before and imported my entries from there. And I keep stumbling over the structure in Vaultwarden and donāt understand, for example, why I can share some entries and not others - maybe itās my basic approach?
Iāve read quite a bit, including the Bitwarden documentary, but I feel like Iām going in circles.
Is there anyone here who is responsive for this? Who might walk me through the features in my account (shared via screenshare) and answer my questions? I would pay for the time too, of course.
Thanks + greetings
Frank
P.S.
Meine bevorzugten Sprachen sind ā in dieser Reihenfolge: Deutsch, NiederlƤndisch, English
Mijn favoriete talen zijn - in deze volgorde: Duits, Nederlands, Engels
My preferred languages are - in this order: German, Dutch, English
You mention you are able to share some things but not others. As I understand most anything you have will be able to be shared in an organization.
Perhaps if you are able to provide information on the issues you are experiencing we can help a bit further in detail for you.
There are also several video instructions on YouTube that may assist you to get started.
Fairly easy to follow guides on many popular features and use cases, hope this can help to see and follow along.
I basically want to understand how the concept is meant. I thought I understood, but apparently not
In VW/BW I find organisations, folders, collections - sometimes there is also talk of groups, but I donāt see them in VW (or only in our installation?).
I have PW that I can share - and others that I canāt, and I donāt understand why. Apparently something differentiates the entries that I donāt see/understand. Most of the entries I imported (Enpass), others I created manually in the desktop client (mac), others VW created in the browser itself (āshould BW save the PW?ā).
I am confused and the more I read and look, the more confused I get.
Thatās why I thought it might be a good idea to look for guidance here? It seems more effective and worth money to me - just because I appreciate help.
I also suspect that if I wanted to formulate my questions, I would have to write long essays that (of course) generate follow-up questions, etc.
Okay, perhaps a short attempt:
I work in a small company and have set up 3 organisations in VW:
Company all - for company PWs that should be available to all.
Company only person1 and person2 - for PWs that should only be available to 2 persons
Private - for me privately
I want to transfer a PW from one organisation to another. For some PWs this is possible, for others not. Why? Sometimes it should work, but then in the dialogue a missing collection is complained and the collection is not offered even though it exists.
I have 1300 entries and it is possible that I have started fundamentally wrong. I would also start again from the beginning - but first I would like to understand how exactly the structure, the order, the logic is - and as I said: I get lost in the DOKs or have more questions than answers after reading ā¦
One of the things you may want to be aware of is that there is no āsharingā in BW. You move an entry to an organization and lose control over it. It is not yours anymore, it now belongs to the organization.
This was confusing and was reflected in a recent change of the wording in the clients (move instead of share)
So just to make sure I understand: in your list of passwords, there are some you can move to organization X, and others that you cannot move to organization X, right? (in other words, you try to move two passwords to the same organization and one is possible and the other is not)
Is there an error when you try? (including on the server)
Or isnāt there the āShareā (or āMoveā) option at all?
I do not see the share/move option for passwords I have already shared/moved to an org, or that I see because they have been shared/moved by someone else into organization X (so these were their passwords before they moved them to the common organization)
Ahh I see, I think I understand a bit more of your confusion and hope to assist.
I would start by mentioning that Bitwarden and Vaultwarden are two separate entities, and this is something you should be aware of.
Bitwarden is the official project developed by 8Bit Solutions and provides the client applications, browser extensions, and desktop client. Vaultwarden is a fork from Bitwarden, and provides only the server component with some premium features available with no license but also lacks some features present in the official version.
Vaultwarden is more geared towards small installations such as a mom and pop shop, or personal homelab.
The official Bitwarden clients are used to connect to and use the Vaultwarden server.
Vaultwarden has some items missing that Bitwarden has, such as the groups you mention.
A full list of missing features can be found in the GitHub Wiki.
Most all other features though are present and available in Vaultwarden and should work the same between the official Bitwarden and Vaultwarden. I would also highly suggest you utilize the Bitwarden support site, as their documentation on the product is very vast and extensive
You have a few items here to address,
Typically Bitwarden is able to import saved login credentials from other password managers, such as Enpass, with good accuracy in my experience though some users report issues from other password managers as well.
If you use the browser extension, it should be able to detect when you enter a new password you have not saved and ask to save the password or not.
I typically prefer to create a new account in Bitwarden browser extension first and save it manually, then create the account with the website though as this is a foolproof method to ensure all entries get saved.
You can check out a recent comment on a post regarding this
You have issues getting to share some passwords and others you can, most likely those passwords have been shared already and that is why you are unable to share them again.
As @WpJ has mentioned the new Bitwarden client has changed the share option to be called move so the two are used interchangeably for now, most likely until the next Vaultwarden release which should use the newest webvault. Sharing | Bitwarden Help Center Password Sharing with Organizations | Bitwarden Blog
Any items in an Organization that are shared with you will show in your Bitwarden client, and from the Webvault there is not an easy way to tell which entries belong to which Organizations.
I would recommend going into each Organization directly to view the entries.
This setup to me is a bit odd and clunky, and may be the cause for some of your sharing issues as you cannot share passwords from one Organization to the other. Once it is moved from being your password to an Organization the password belongs to that Organization. If you have access you may copy the entry back and then share out to another Organization but again can cause issues, especially if wanting them to be in sync.
While you can keep your own personal passwords in an personal Organization, I do not see much benefit at this time other than possibly having a backup account with access to the personal Org in the event of account lock out, as emergency access is currently not implemented in Vaultwarden.
Every new account in Vaultwarden will have access to their own personal vault, which where they can store password credentials, secure notes, etc.
User can then also join an Organization in Vaultwarden where password entries, etc. may be moved into the Organization and access to shared to all the member users of that Organization.
Unless you have a specific reason for a personal organization, and Person1 and Person2 company organization vault, I would recommend you just have a single Company Organization.
Your user will have your own personal vault where only you can access, you have the company organization where passwords can be stored.
In the company Organization you can create new collections / folders and that collection can be shared out only to person1 and person2 so they will only have access to that folder and the passwords inside.
Your user will have your own personal vault where only you can access, you have the company organization where passwords can be stored.
would probably be better worded as
Your user will have their own personal vault where only they can access, and everyone has the company organization where passwords can be stored (either directly, or shared/moved from a personal vault).
1000 thanks for the very detailed and comprehensive answer!!!
I think I now understand a little better what the problem is.
It probably makes most sense for me to start again, with only 1 organisation and then work - exclusively - with collections and folders.
