How to Install Vaultwarden on Windows 11

Vaultwarden is an open-source password manager that allows you to store and manage your passwords securely. In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Vaultwarden on Windows 11.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, you need to ensure that the following prerequisites are already set up on your Windows 11 computer:

  • Git
  • Rust
  • OpenSSL

Step 1: Clone the Vaultwarden Repository

Open Git Bash and use the following command to clone the Vaultwarden repository:

git clone https://github.com/dani-garcia/vaultwarden.git

This will create a new directory named Vaultwarden in the current working directory.

Step 2: Install Rust

Vaultwarden is written in Rust, so you need to install Rust to compile and run it.

You can install Rust by running the following command in your terminal or command prompt:

curl https://sh.rustup.rs -sSf | sh

After installation, Rust is added to your system's PATH variable.

Step 3: Install OpenSSL

Vaultwarden requires OpenSSL to generate secure encryption keys. You can download OpenSSL from its official website.

After installation, add OpenSSL to the system's environment variables.

Step 4: Build & run the Vaultwarden Server

In the cloned repository, open a terminal or command prompt and execute the following commands to build and run the server:

cd Vaultwarden
cargo build --features sqlite --release
cd target/release
.\vaultwarden.exe start

This command will build the Vaultwarden server and start it using the default SQLite database.

If you want to use a different database, you can use the DATABASE_URL environment variable to specify the connection string for it. Here's an example:

.\vaultwarden.exe start --database-url=postgres://user:password@localhost/vaultwarden

Step 5: Set Up the Vaultwarden Web Interface

Once the Vaultwarden server is running, you can set up the web interface by following these steps:

  1. Download the latest release of the web interface from the Vaultwarden repository.
  2. Extract the contents of the downloaded zip file to the static directory in the Vaultwarden root directory.
  3. Open a web browser and navigate to http://localhost:80 to access the web interface.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, you learned how to install and run Vaultwarden on Windows 11. By following these steps, you can now manage your passwords securely using Vaultwarden.