Password on ISG Blog · D-MATH

Password manager

Wed, 13 May 2026 14:53:36 +0200

This is a short guide for safely storing and (optionally) synchronising your passwords across your devices using KeePassXC (free, open source, cross-platform) and your Polybox account for synchronisation.

Why use a password manager?

Every service should have a unique, strong password — you cannot remember dozens of them, so let software do it.
You only have to remember one strong master password.
Auto-fill in the browser is faster and safer than typing.
You keep an encrypted backup of all your credentials.

Why KeePassXC?

Open source and runs natively on Linux, macOS, and Windows.
Your passwords are stored in a single encrypted file (.kdbx) that you fully control — no third-party cloud, no subscription.
Compatible clients exist for Android (KeePassDX) and iOS (KeePassium, Strongbox).

Install KeePassXC

On our Linux devices KeePassXC is preinstalled and on our macOS devices it can be installed via the ETH Self Service App if it is not already present.

Changing your password

Wed, 17 May 2023 10:49:51 +0200

You can change your ETH passwords using the web center at https://passwort.ethz.ch.

After you log in, click on “Self Service” and then on “Change password”. Then select a group of passwords that you want to change (LDAPS, Active Directory, Radius), enter the new password twice and click on “Save” (note the policies on bottom).

On the other side you also can change your D-MATH password (actually for desktop login, sftp and a few other applications incl. “t3”-applications) using one of the following tools:

How to Protect a Webpage with a Password

Wed, 17 May 2023 10:40:06 +0200

Suppose you want to protect the sub-page “secure” of your homepage with a password; that is, you want the visitors to be asked for a username and a password when accessing a webpage:

https://people.math.ethz.ch/~USERNAME/secure/

To do that you first have to create the directory “secure” with the correct permissions:

mkdir ~/www/secure
chmod 755 ~/www/secure

Then you have to create a kind of configuration file in that directory, named .htaccess with the following content (you can use emacs, xemacs, vi, … as editor)