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Now that I had decided on setting up Bitwarden, I had to build an AWS environment to run it on. I decided to do this in Terraform, as it lets me document Infrastructure-as-Code, and makes it easy to set up and tear down. I've put all of the code needed with instructions and minimal tweaks in this Github project folder for others to use as well, if it is helpful.
I considered using VaultWarden, which is a free, alternative implementation of Bitwarden written in Rust, but the fact that Bitwarden is run through a number of Docker containers appeals to me, and I can dedicate the resources in my homelab, or in AWS, to run it. Bitwarden also has a number of other features that appeal to me, and supporting the original project also seemed to make sense. Using Bitwarden also would maintain the best compatibility with browser plugins and mobile applications.
One of the requirements for installing Bitwarden is a domain name with DNS records. This could be created in Amazon Route 53 if you are creating a new domain or subdomain already managed in AWS. I am using CloudFlare for DNS for this domain, so I had to create an A record for Bitwarden to use, pointing to the public IP address of the EC2 instance created by Terraform:
I also looked at KeePass Password Safe and KeePassXC, which are open source. KeePassXC does have a browser plugin, but the password database is stored as a file, which makes it trickier to maintain as it would need to be manually synchronized between computers. Other products like Bitwarden and VaultWarden run as a full server, and have browser plugins and phone applications that can talk to it.
I also looked at KeePass Password Safe and KeePassXC, which are open source. KeePassXC does have a browser plugin, but the password database is stored as a file, which makes it trickier to maintain as it would need to be manually synchronized between computers. Other products like Bitwarden and VaultWarden run as a full server, and have browser plugins and phone applications that can talk to it.