Self hosted Bitwarden on Debian 12

I need a password manager – I simply have too many passwords. For a very long time my weapon of choice was Locko. However, due to it’s lack of sharing passwords locally (e.g. via some personal cloud) I have decided to look for something else. Bitwarden seemed like a good idea. Open Sourced, allows self hosting (this is my preferred way of storing passwords – locally), Docker based.

Installation of Docker

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1. Docker

I have decided to use Docker installation based on deb packages. Quite simple and straightforward: deb based Docker. From there, you have to simply follow steps here: Bitwarden at Linux.

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2. domain and SSL certificates

There are two major issues with the Bitwarden self hosted installation – domain name and SSL certificate. If you already have some hosting running this is not such a big problem. After all, you already have a domain. You probably have a certificate as well (for example wildcard one). But still, you have to open your machine for the world with a DNS record A modification. Fortunately, there is a solution here. After successful installation you can make your Bitwarden local again. Just take a look below.

1. Setup A - DNS record and point at your machine (ideally with a public IP)
2. Get your SSL certificate into machine (if you have one – you can use Let's Encrypt as well)
3. You will have to add port forwarding inside your router for the installation time
4. Setup Bitwarden at target machine

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3. making Bitwarden local again

1. Disable port forwarding
2. Add entries inside /etc/hosts

192.168.0.22  your.domain.name

This way, you will be able to access your Bitwarden instance locally, without exposing it to the outside world. And all of that with a minimal effort required. Happy password sharing between different machines :)