Thanks @alexacallmebaka , looks like you found a "todo" in our public API implementation, https://github.com/bitwarden/server/blob/master/src/Api/Public/Controllers/GroupsController.cs#L90

We'll get this on our backlog.

Is anyone working on this? If not, I'd love to do it.

@AqeelAT , no one is assigned yet, if you would like to tackle this please feel free (and thank you!)

Is there any documentation about the development process? I was able to find the swagger endpoint but then I'm required to authorize the requests for which I need a client_id and secret. Where can I find these credentials for development purposes? Is it somewhere in the Identity project? I can't run Identity Server locally #943 in order to create these credentials.

Also how do you deal with CORS in development when dealing with the API and Identity Server? So maybe there is some documentation but I'm unable to find it.

Hi @DavidSSL , for local development (getting community development guides published is on our radar), here are some excerpts from our internal development wiki:

Local Development: Server

For local development and running the Server (Api, Identity, etc.) you'll need to setup a few things in order to make that work, connect to your own local SQL instance (docker image), as well as have appropriate certificates available for doing encrypty type things.

User Secrets

You will need to manage user secrets for each site project in the Server solution. This includes predominately the Api and Identity projects, although there are other, lessor used ones that may also need it depending on what you're doing, but these 2 set the foundation.

Visual Studio on Windows

You can simply right-click on the Project and "View User Secrets" (or something like that), easy peasy.

Visual Studio on macOS

You must open a terminal and go to each project directory. Once there you initiate and create the blank user secrets file by running,

dotnet user-secrets init

You can then view/list any secrets you have set by running, dotnet user-secrets list. For more info see: Safe storage of app secrets in development in ASP.NET Core

Rider

• Navigate to Preferences -> Plugins and Install .NET Core User Secrets
• You can now right click on the a project (ex: Api), go to 'tools' and 'Open project user secrets'

User Secrets - Certificates

Once you have your user secrets files setup, you'll need to generate 3 of your own certificates for use in local development.

Generate Certificates

1. Within a terminal, navigate to ~/Desktop
2. Run the following command to create an Identity Server (Dev) certificate + key (separate)

openssl req -x509 -newkey rsa:4096 -sha256 -nodes -keyout identity_server_dev.key -out identity_server_dev.crt -subj "/CN=Bitwarden Identity Server Dev" -days 3650

3. Run the following command to create an Identity Server (Dev) certificate + key pfx file based on the previously created certificate + key
4. You will be prompted to enter a password - remember this because you’ll need it for your keychain

openssl pkcs12 -export -out identity_server_dev.pfx -inkey identity_server_dev.key -in identity_server_dev.crt -certfile identity_server_dev.crt

5. Run the following command to create a Data Protection (Dev) certificate + key (separate)

openssl req -x509 -newkey rsa:4096 -sha256 -nodes -keyout data_protection_dev.key -out data_protection_dev.crt -subj "/CN=Bitwarden Data Protection Dev" -days 3650

6. Once created, do the same process for a Data Protection (Dev) certificate + key pfx file
7. Again, create a password so you can save the files in your keychain

openssl pkcs12 -export -out data_protection_dev.pfx -inkey data_protection_dev.key -in data_protection_dev.crt -certfile data_protection_dev.crt

8. Add all of the generated pfx files to your login keychain by double-clicking on the files
   1. You’ll need to enter the respective generated password for each
9. Update the Trust options for each certificate to always trust - don’t worry, this is secure…. :)
10. Get the SHA 1 thumbprint for the Identity and Data Protection certificates and them to your Api User Secrets file
11. Copy + Pasta the entire file into the Identity secrets
    1. Access the Identity user secrets the same way Api user

Running and Debugging

Launching the entire bitwarden/server solution for use with the bitwarden/web and other client projects.

Prerequisites

• Docker MSSQL instance running (and accessible localhost)
• An ADS connection to the vault_dev database is running
• Node.js is installed with updated PATH variables for launch
• User secrets are configured, password updated to MSSQL database

Visual Studio for macOS

You can right click on each project, Identity and then Api, in order, and click Start Debugging Project.

You can also, alternatively if you only need them running locally w/o debugging, open a terminal and navigate to each respective .csproj location and type,

dotnet run

NOTE: when doing this the port number on the URL may be different and you'll need to update any client configuration(s) and/or user secrets accordingly (typically the Api user secrets for the Identity URL).

Rider

• From within Rider, launch both the Api project and the Identity project
  • This is done by hitting the play button for each project separately

Notes

• Don’t be alarmed when the default localhost:port for both projects opens and it shows a 404 error
  • Test the Api deployment: http://localhost:5000/alive
  • Test the Identity deployment: http://localhost:33657/.well-known/openid-configuration
  • You should not see any errors but rather responses on the webpage(s)

@cscharf I've tried to follow the instructions but I was unable to go further at the point where I had to double click on the .pfx file because on my Linux system this just opened up application options when I guess it was supposed to be added to the certificate manager.

Since these are not 100% familiar concepts to me and the fact that I won't have time for the next couple of months, I will bow out for now.

@AqeelAT are you actively working on this? If not, I can take a crack at it.

Wanted to check in to make sure I'm not stepping on anyone's toes.

@echen805 I'm not. Feel free to do it.

Hi @cscharf, I have setup my local development server and was in the process of replicating the issue when I realized that organizations is a premium feature for a self hosted server. Is there a development license I can use?

I think this is a good first issue for me to try to work on this repo so if there isn't, I don't mind just purchasing a premium license. But I figured I'd ask first.

Hi @echen805 , you can run local w/o using "self-hosted" if you can supply properly formatted connection strings for various cloud services, which is the primary hangup there. Here's a sample secrets JSON file that should get you what you need to run locally and use the "free" account + free org(s) without having to have access to billing services/APIs or cloud infrastructure as long as your SQL connection string is all set. Unless you do actually set up S3 or Azure Table storage/queues account or run locally using emulators in Docker, etc. however some features won't work (like file storage, notifications, etc.) which likely fine for this issue.

Also, see the article, "Use the Azure Storage Emulator for development and testing", for how I use a local emulator for most of the storage operations when emulating "cloud".

For this secrets file, don't forget to replace the <thumbprint goes here> with the appropriate certificate thumbprints you've generated, as well as the globalSettings:sqlServer:connectionString value with the appropriate user + password values (and double check the database name).

Let me know if you run into any issues, I've not had a chance to test this configuration so there may need to be a tweak or 2.

secrets.json.txt

Awesome, thanks so much! I'll try it out this week!