How to use Password Sentinel

How to use Password Sentinel

Get Started Using Password Sentinel
Creating a new database

The first step you need to do is create a new password database. Password Sentinel will store all your future passwords in this database. To create one, click 'File - New Database' in the main menu or click the fist toolbar button on the left.

A window will pop up, which prompts you for a master password and/or key-disk. The database will be encrypted with the password you enter here. The password you enter here will be the only password you'll ever have to remember from on now. It should be long and built up of mixed characters. Keep in mind that when someone gets your database file and guesses the password, he could access all passwords you stored in the database!

Click into the password edit field and enter a password that you like. The password edit control isn't limited in length, so you can even enter a whole sentence (just keep in mind that you'll need to remember it).

When you've entered a nice password/passphrase, click [OK]. A second window appears, prompting you for the password again. This is to prevent you from accidently mistyping the password. So, just enter the password again which you've entered at the first window and click [OK]. If you entered the same password as before (i.e. didn't mistype any of the characters), Password Sentinel will now show the main database window.

Now you see the main window. On the left, you see the password groups. On the right, you see the actual password entries. The password entries are grouped together into the password groups you see on the left. So, depending on which group on the left you selected, it'll show you the entries in this group in the right view. Password Sentinel has created a few default groups for you, but you're totally free to delete them and create your own.

Adding an entry

Time to store your very first password in the Password Sentinel  database! Right-click into the right password entry view and choose 'Add Entry...'. A window will pop up. In this window you can now edit your entry: enter some title for it, an username, an URL, the actual password, etc. If you don't need some of the fields, just leave them empty. When you're done, click [OK].

You'll see your new entry in the password list on the right now.

Using entries

You got the new entry in the password list now. What can you actually do with it now? Right-click onto the entry.

You have several options now. You can for example copy the username of the entry to the Windows clipboard. When you've copied it, you can post it into any other program of your choice. The same works for copying passwords.

Password Sentinel can open the URL you specified. To do this, just click 'Open URL(s)...' in the context menu. Password Sentinel will start the default browser and open the specified URL.

Saving the database

It's time to save our database. Click onto the 'save' toolbar button (looks like a disk; 3rd toolbar button). You now have to specify a location where you want the database file to be stored.

More

That's it! You've made the first steps in using Password Sentinel ! You can now have a look at the more advanced features of Password Sentinel.

Passwords and key-disks: In the tutorial above we've encrypted the database using a password. But Password Sentinel also supports key-disks, i.e. you can lock your database using a file (which you can carry around on your USB stick for example). It even supports combining those two methods for maximum security!

Auto-Type: The auto-typing functionality is a very powerful feature. In the tutorial above you've copied the username and password of an entry to the clipboard. Wouldn't it be nice if Password Sentinel would just type those strings for you into other windows? Wouldn't it be nice if you could define whole sequences of key-presses that Password Sentinel should type for you? That's exactly what the Auto-Typing feature does: it sends simulated key-presses for you to other windows!

URL field capabilities: The URL field supports URLs of course. In the tutorial, you've learned that you can enter simple URLs into this field and Password Sentinel will open the browser window for you

Command-line capabilities: You can open .kdb files by passing the filename to the Password Sentinel executable file. But did you know that you can also send the password for the database and key-file location over the command-line? You can also use the command-line to pre-select a key-drive for you