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Ra ael Herrmann
September 25, 2019 2 minute read

Mastering your SAP PI/PO passwords with KeePass and

SAPNW WindowRenamer
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3 Likes 179 Views 4 Comments

During daily work with SAP PI systems, a lot of passwords quickly accumulate. Especially as a consultant
you have more SAP PI systems at the end of the day than you can remember passwords. Nevertheless, in
order to be able to use a secure and complex password for each system, the use of a password manager is
indispensable. I myself, but also many customers, use KeePass as a tool of choice.

Once the passwords have been maintained, you can conveniently enter your passwords using the autotype
feature. (Once you are on a website, just press: Ctrl + Alt + A and KeePass will automatically type-in your
passwords).

The problem
The whole thing works wonderfully, until you come across the login page of SAP NetWeaver systems,
because they do not have a clear window title that KeePass could use to assign the right password.

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As you can see, the title is static and does not correspond to the speci c SAP system. Thus when adding
more and more SAP NetWeaver systems to your KeePass, you end up with a selection screen when using
the Auto-Type feature as shown below.

The more SAP NetWeaver passwords you add the more time you will need to pickup the right entry. Since I
am an IT person at heart, I do not like ine cient systems and have considered a possible solution to the
problem…

The solution
So that KeePass can assign the respective SAP Logon page to a KeePass entry, the page title must contain a
characteristic which is also stored in the KeePass entry. What’s better here than the hostname? Nothing.

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Because the hostname is both known – to the browser and usually stored in the KeePass entry, too.

So to get the hostname in the page title now, I’ve written a little extension for the Chrome browser that
essentially does the following:

When a web page is nished loading, the plugin checks if it is an SAP NetWeaver login page.
If it is a login page, it will pick the host name from the address bar and the host name to the page header.

Subsequently, KeePass is able to automatically match the login page with the matching KeePass entry
without further con guration. (The title of your KeePass entry should contain the hostname or at least
unique parts of it anywhere in between.)

How to use the extension?

There are will be two ways to use the “SAPNW WindowRenamer” Chrome extension.

1. Download it from the Chrome Web Store.

2. Download the plugin’s source code from Github. You can nd the Github repository over here. Then load it
as “unpacked extension” as described in the rst sentences of this Google developer manual.

Conclusion
Sometimes it’s the little things that make life a lot easier. I hope the plugin is as useful to you as it is to me.

Since passwords as well as browser extensions are a sensitive topic, I decided to make the source code
available on Github (as I did before with the RealCore SAP CPI Dashboard), so you can be sure that the
plugin really only does what it claims to do.

I’m looking forward to your suggestions for improvements and your feedback. Stay productive!

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Assigned tags

SAP Process Integration | SAP Process Orchestration | chrome extension | keepass | Password handling |

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4 Comments

Vadim Klimov

September 25, 2019 at 10:01 am

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Nice work, Ra ael! And shall be indeed very demanded – not only to allow more productive usage of
password managers, but also to make navigation through tabs of di erent systems more comfortable and
less confusing. Thank you for sharing it – and making it open source!

I use a combination of Google Chrome and Vivaldi browsers primarily, where an alternative based on
analysis of the URL, can be utilized to rename tabs. It is based on an extension named ‘Tab Modi er’ (GitHub
| Chrome Web Store). The idea behind it is that you can compose how tab’s title shall look like, based on
rules analyzing parts of the URL that is accessed. For example, all tabs for URLs that access the same host
(such as, Web Dispatcher of a speci c PI/PO system, or tenant ID of a speci c CPI tenant), can be renamed
by appending PI/PO SID or more distinct CPI tenant name to an original title, or replacing that title
completely. Might be that some similar extension exists for other browsers, too. And I’m pretty sure there
can be alternatives to this extension for Chrome, as well. This extension was actually discovered and shared
by Piotr Radzki, when he shared ideas with Daniel Graversen on how tab titles can be made more friendly
and correlate to a particular CPI tenant, rather than contain the same title for all CPI tenants.

Regards,

Vadim

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Ra ael Herrmann | Post author

September 25, 2019 at 1:15 pm

Hi Vadim,

thanks for your feedback. I checked the “Tab Modi er” out and it seems like I “reinvented the wheel”. If I
had known it before, I hadn’t written the plugin described in the post above. (On the other hand – it was an
interesting challenge to write a Chrome extension…)

By the way I have written a similiar portable tool to rename SAP PI/PO Swing GUI window titles (and any
other Windows application window titles, too). Do you think this could be interesting or do you already have
a tool for this use case, too? If so, let me know its name.

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Vadim Klimov

September 25, 2019 at 2:51 pm

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I would see it di erently, not “reinvention of the wheel”: you have introduced and shared an alternative
technical solution to a common problem – and that e ort shall be appreciated by community. Plus you have
show cased how this can be used in conjunction with some other tools like password manager. So this kind
of input is indeed valuable.

As for Java Web Start client / Swing GUI – no, I haven’t seen tools to rename ESR / Integration Directory
tool’s titles. I shall admit, I haven’t looked for them yet, as SID and instance name used to be present in the
title – though not at the rst place, but after longer generic name of the tool. So, if you have already
developed a tool or technique that is capable of tweaking this, it shall be great to give a try to it.

Looking forward to seeing your new developments and making use of them!

Regards,

Vadim

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Ra ael Herrmann | Post author

September 25, 2019 at 3:03 pm

 I haven’t looked for them yet, as SID and instance name used to be present in the title […]

That’s correct, but if you look at the screenshot in my last comment, you can see the problem. At least at my
computer the generic name is that long, that it won’t be shown in the preview. So when having multiple
windows open, I have to click through each to nd the correct one, because it is impossible to get it at rst
sight from the previews. The right-side of the screenshot shows how it looks like, when the tool is used.

Glad to hear, that you’re interested. So I’ll put it on my list for upcoming blog articles.

Regards,
Ra ael

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