WebDAV and SFTP now available on MacOS

Strongbox now supports WebDAV and SFTP on MacOS. These new storage providers have been much requested because they provide the ability to host your own KeePass database on your own storage, in a way that allows for synchronisation across devices and availability from anywhere on the Internet (if you like).

Note: The WebDAV & SFTP are part of the MacOS Pro feature set

WebDAV and SFTP are public open protocols supported by a wealth of different devices. Indeed SFTP is probably the standard way of transferring files on Linux based systems. Because it is built on top of SSH it is also the most secure way to do this also. WebDAV is an open extension of HTTP, adding new methods like PROPGET and PROPFIND and can sit seamlessly on top of a regular HTTP(S) session. In particular WebDAV is supported by Nextcloud and Owncloud, 2 popular up and coming privacy conscious storage solutions, which allow users to operate or subscribe to their own personal storage solution. Often Nextcloud runs on top of a NAS. Alternatively, many NAS’s support WebDAV and SFTP natively, for example Synology and QNAP provide their own implementations.

If you’re not keen on storing your database on your cloud provider, perhaps a free Dropbox or Google Drive account, but you want the convenience of a centralised location to store your password database, then WebDAV or SFTP could be for you. Strongbox tries to make this straightforward and has supported these protocols on iOS for quite a while. Now these protocols are available on MacOS.

To add a WebDAV or SFTP hosted database to Strongbox, simply:

  1. Launch Strongbox and bring up the Databases Manager window (Command + D).
  2. Tap the ‘Add Database…‘ button in the bottom right hand corner and select WebDAV or SFTP as preferred
  3. You’ll now be prompted to enter the location of your server, and authentication information. Tap Connect when done.
  4. Once successfully authenticated against your server you can start to browse your files and folders.
  5. Locate your database, and tap Select.
  6. You should now have added this database and you’ll be presented with the Unlock screen.
Strongbox SFTP Setup – Browsing for a database on MacOS

Strongbox will sync your changes back and forth (merging automatically where necessary). Strongbox also checks if your database has been changed by another process periodically and updates it if so, so you’re always working with the latest version.

We hope you’ll like this feature and that it’ll all be smooth sailing, of course we’d love to hear what you think and if we can improve in any way!