gauth/README.md

Google Authenticator

Installation

With a Go environment already set up, it should be as easy as go get github.com/pcarrier/gauth.

Eg, with GOPATH=$HOME/go, it will create a binary $HOME/go/bin/gauth.

Usage

• In web interfaces, pretend you can't read QR codes, get a secret like hret 3ij7 kaj4 2jzg instead.

• Store one secrets per line in ~/.config/gauth.csv, in the format name:secret, for example:

    AWS:ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ234567ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ234567
    Airbnb:abcdefghijklmnop
    Google:a2b3c4d5e6f7g8h9
    Github:234567qrstuvwxyz
  

• Restrict access to your user:

    $ chmod 600 ~/.config/gauth.json
  

• Run gauth. The progress bar shows when the next change will happen.

    ~$ gauth
               prev   curr   next
    AWS        315306 135387 483601
    Airbnb     563728 339206 904549
    Google     453564 477615 356846
    Github     911264 548790 784099
    [=======                      ]
  

• Remember to keep your system clock synchronized and to lock your computer when brewing your tea!

Rooted Android?

If your Android phone is rooted, it's easy to "back up" your secrets from an adb shell into gauth.

# sqlite3 /data/data/com.google.android.apps.authenticator2/databases/database 'select email,secret from accounts'

Really, does this make sense?

At least to me, it does. My laptop features encrypted storage, a stronger authentication mechanism, and I take better care of preserving its physical integrity. My phone also runs arbitrary apps.

Thanks to the convenience of a command line utility, my usage of 2-factor authentication went from 3 services to 9 over a few days. Clearly a win for security.