Configuring
Avendesora is configured by way of a collection of files contained in the config directory (~/.config/avendesora). This directory may contain the following files:
Configuration Files
accounts_files
This file contains the list of known account files. The first file in the list is the default account file (this is where new accounts go by default). You can use the new command to add additional files to this list, but to delete account file you must manually edit this file and remove them from the list.
config, config.doc
You control the behavior of Avendesora through a collection of settings that are specified in config. The available settings and their default values are documented in config.doc. Generally you only place values in config if you would like to change them from their default value. In that way, you will get the latest values for all other settings when you update Avendesora.
hashes
One of the risks in using a password generator is that changed in the code can result in the passwords changing. Thus there is a risk that when you upgrade Avendesora that your passwords will change. Avendesora provides the archive and changed commands to help detect these situations. It also keeps hashes of several key parts of the code that if changed could result in the passwords changing. When Avendesora runs, it recomputes these hashes on itself and compares them to the hashes saved in this file. If any of the hashes have changed a warning message is produced, which can alert you to changes that you might have otherwise missed.
It is normal that these hashes change when the program is updated. When you see the message that the hashes have changed you should run the changed command to assure that none of your generated secrets have changed. This assumes that you have created an archive file and kept it up to date.
stealth_accounts
This file contains the definitions of the available stealth accounts. Stealth accounts allow you to create passwords for accounts that are not kept in an account file.
<accounts file>
A file containing a collection of related accounts. All accounts in a file share a common master seed.
<archive file>
This file contains all known accounts with any generated secrets expanded. It is used to identify account values that may have inadvertently changed.
<log file>
The log file is created after each invocation of Avendesora. It provides details about the run that can help understand what happened during the run, which can help you resolve issues when things go wrong. This file can leak account information, and so it is best if it is encrypted.
Settings
The settings are documented in config.doc, and can be overwritten by specifying the desired values in the config file (found in ~/.config/avendesora). The available settings are:
log_file
The desired name of the log file (relative to config directory). Adding a suffix of .gpg or .asc causes the file to be encrypted (otherwise it can leak account names). Use None to disable logging.
The default is ‘log.gpg’.
archive_file
The desired name of the archive file (relative to config director). End the path in .gpg or .asc. Use None to disable archiving.
The default is ‘archive.gpg’.
previous_archive_file
The existing archive file is renamed to this name when updating the archive file. This could be helpful if the archive file is somehow corrupted.
The default is ‘previous_archive_file’.
archive_stale
The archive file is consider stale if it is this many days older than the most recently updated account file.
The default is = 1.
default_field
The name of the field to use for the value command when one is not given. May be a space separated list of names, in which case the first that is found is used.
The default is ‘passcode password passphrase’.
default_vector_field
The name of the field to use when an integer is given as the argument to the value command. In this case the field is expected to be a list and the argument is taken to be the index of the desired value. For example, if default_vector_field is ‘question’ and the argument given with the value command is 1, then question[1] is produced.
The default is ‘questions’.
dynamic_fields
Fields whose values can change in real time. These fields will not be mentioned by the changed command, even if their value differs from when the most recent archive was created.
The default is ‘’.
credential_ids
A string that contains the field names (space separated) that should be considered by the credentials command for the account identity.
The default is ‘username email’.
credential_secrets
A string that contains the field names (space separated) that should be considered by the credentials command for the primary account secret.
The default is ‘passcode password passphrase email’.
display_time
The number of seconds that the secret will be displayed before it is erased when writing to the TTY or the clipboard.
The default is 60.
ms_per_char
The time between keystrokes when autotyping. The default is 12ms. This is the global setting. Generally it is not necessary to change this. Leaving at its default value works in most cases and result in a pleasingly fast response times. However, some websites, particularly those that are infested with javascript helpers, cannot tolerate extremely fast typing rates. In these cases it is better to use the rate attribute to the discovery script to limit the typing rate. Doing so only slows the entry of your credentials on those websites.
The default is 12.
encoding
The unicode encoding to use when reading or writing files.
The default is ‘utf-8’.
edit_account
The command used when editing an account. The command is given as list of strings. The strings may contain {filepath} and {account}, which are replaced by the path to the file and the name of the account.
The default is suitable if you use Vim:
edit_account = ( 'gvim', # use gvim -v so that user can access '-v', # the X clipboard buffers '+silent! /^class {account}(Account):/', '+silent! normal zozt', # open the fold, position near top of screen '{filepath}' )
edit_template
The command used when creating a new account that has been initialized with a template. The command is given as list of strings. The strings may contain {filepath}, which is replaced by the path to the file.
The default is suitable if you use Vim:
edit_template = ( 'gvim', # use gvim -v so that user can access '-v', # the X clipboard buffers r'+silent! /_[A-Z0-9_]\+_/', # matches user modifiable template fields # fields take the form '_AAA_' '+silent! normal zozt', # open the fold, position near top of screen '{filepath}' )
browsers
A dictionary containing the supported browsers. For each entry the key is the name to be used for the browser, and the value is string that contains the command that invokes the browser. The value may contain {url}, which is replaced by the URL to open.
The default is:
browsers = { 'c': 'google-chrome {{url}}', 'ci': 'google-chrome --incognito {{url}}', 'f': 'firefox -new-tab {{url}}', 'fp': 'firefox -private-window {{url}}', 'q': 'qutebrowser {{url}}', 't': 'torbrowser {{url}}', 'x': 'xdg-open {{url}}', }
default_browser
The name of the default browser. This name should be one of the keys in the browsers dictionary.
The default value is ‘f’.
command_aliases
You can create custom short cuts for Avendesora commands using the this setting. By default, Avendesora comes with a collection of aliases, but you can change them, delete them, or add others. Aliases are specified with a dictionary, where the key is the alias, and the value is a list that consists of full command name and an optional set of command line arguments. For example:
command_aliases = dict( b = ['browse'], bc = ['browse', '--browser', 'c'], )Alternately, you can specify the value of each alias as a string, in which case it is split at white space to provide the command name and options:
command_aliases = dict( b = 'browse', bc = 'browse --browser c', )In either case, the first item must be the name of a built-in command.
With this set of aliases, ‘b’ becomes a short cut for ‘browse’ and ‘bc’ becomes a short cut for ‘browse –browser c’.
With the introduction of this setting, the hard-coded command short cuts were removed from Avendesora and replaced by the default value of this setting:
command_aliases = dict( a = 'add', A = 'archive', b = 'browse', bc = 'browse --browser c', c = 'conceal', C = 'changed', e = 'edit', f = 'find', h = 'help', ident = 'identity', I = 'identity', init = 'initialize', i = 'interactive', login = 'credentials', l = 'credentials', N = 'new', alphabet = 'phonetic', p = 'phonetic', quest = 'questions', q = 'questions', qc = 'questions --clipboard', r = 'reveal', s = 'search', val = 'value', v = 'value', vc = 'value --clipboard', vals = 'values', vs = 'values', V = 'values', )Specifying your own value for command_aliases overrides the built-in default. If you would like to add your own aliases, you should consider specifying the above and then add in your new aliases.
default_protocol
The default protocol to use for a URL if the protocol is not specified in the requested URL. Generally this should be ‘https’ or ‘http’, though ‘https’ is recommended.
The default is ‘https’.
config_dir_mask
An integer that determines if the permissions of Avendesora configuration directory (~/.config/avendesora) are too loose. If they are, a warning is printed. A bitwise and operation is performed between this value and the actual file permissions, and if the result is nonzero, a warning is printed. Set to 0o000 to disable the warning. Set to 0o077 to generate a warning if the configuration directory is readable or writable by the group or others. Set to 0o007 to generated a warning if the directory is readable or writable by others.
The default is 0o077.
account_file_mask
An integer that determines if the permissions of Avendesora account files are too loose. If they are, a warning is printed and the permissions are changed. A bitwise and operation is performed between this value and the actual file permissions, and if the result is nonzero, a warning is printed. Set to 0o000 to disable the warning. Set to 0o077 to generate a warning if the configuration directory is readable or writable by the group or others. Set to 0o007 to generated a warning if the directory is readable or writable by others.
The default is 0o077.
label_color
highlight_color
color_scheme
The color scheme used for the label color. Choose from ‘dark’, ‘light’ or None. If the shell background color is light, use ‘dark’.
The default is ‘dark’.
use_pager
Use a external program to break long output into pages. May be either a boolean or a string. If a string the string is taken to be a command line use to invoke a paging program (like ‘more’). If True, the program name is taken from the PAGER environment variable if set, or less is used if not set. If False, a paging program is not used.
The default is True.
selection_utility
Which utility should be used when it becomes necessary for you to interactively make a choice. Two utilities are available: gtk, the default, and dmenu.
gtk is the built-in selection. When needed it pops a small dialog box in the middle of the screen. You can use the j and k to navigate to your selection and l to make the selection or h to cancel. Alternately you can use the arrow keys and Enter and Esc to navigate, select, and cancel.
dmenu is an external utility, and must be installed. With dmenu you type the first few letters of your selection to highlight it, then type Enter to select or Esc to cancel.
The default is ‘gtk’.
verbose
Set this to True to generate additional information in the log file that can help debug account discovery issues. Normally it should be False to avoid leaking account information into log file. This is most useful when debugging account discovery, and in that case this setting has largely been superseded by the use of the
--titleand--verbosecommand line options.The default is False.
account_templates
The available account templates. These are used when creating new accounts. The templates are given as a dictionary where the key is the name of the template and the value is the template itself. The template is passed through textwrap.dedent() to remove any leading white space. Any lines that begin with ‘# Avendesora: ‘ represent comments that can contain instructions to the user. They will are removed when the account is created.
additional_account_templates
Similar to account_templates, this settings allows you to add to any built-in templates whereas you would override the built-in templates if you used account_templates directly.
default_account_template
The default account template that is used when creating a new account and the user does not specify a template name.
gpg_ids
The GPG ID or IDs to use by default when creating encrypted files (the archive and account files).
gpg_armor
In the GPG world, armoring a file means converting it to simple ASCII. Choose between ‘always’, ‘never’ and ‘extension’ (.asc: armor, .gpg: no).
The default is ‘extension’.
gpg_home
This is your GPG home directory. By default it will be ~/.gnupg.
gpg_executable
Path to the gpg2 executable.
The default is /usr/bin/gpg2.
xdotool_executable
Path to the xdotool executable.
The default is /usr/bin/xdotool.
xsel_executable
External command that is used to place a value in the X selection buffer. Use ‘/usr/bin/xsel -p’ if you wish to use the primary buffer (mouse middle click). Use ‘/usr/bin/xsel -b’ if you wish to use the clipboard buffer (Ctrl-V or mouse right click then paste).
The default is /usr/bin/xsel (uses xsel default, which is the primary buffer).