1.\" Copyright (c) 1989, 1991, 1993 2.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. 3.\" 4.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 5.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions 6.\" are met: 7.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 8.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 9.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright 10.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the 11.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 12.\" 3. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors 13.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 14.\" without specific prior written permission. 15.\" 16.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 17.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 18.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 19.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 20.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 21.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 22.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 23.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 24.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 25.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 26.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 27.\" 28.Dd June 4, 1993 29.Dt GETPASS 3 30.Os 31.Sh NAME 32.Nm getpass 33.Nd get a password 34.Sh LIBRARY 35.Lb libc 36.Sh SYNOPSIS 37.In pwd.h 38.In unistd.h 39.Ft char * 40.Fn getpass "const char *prompt" 41.Sh DESCRIPTION 42The 43.Fn getpass 44function displays a prompt to, and reads in a password from, 45.Pa /dev/tty . 46If this file is not accessible, 47.Fn getpass 48displays the prompt on the standard error output and reads from the standard 49input. 50.Pp 51The password may be up to _PASSWORD_LEN (currently 128) 52characters in length. 53Any additional 54characters and the terminating newline character are discarded. 55.Pp 56The 57.Fn getpass 58function turns off character echoing while reading the password. 59.Sh RETURN VALUES 60The 61.Fn getpass 62function returns a pointer to the null terminated password. 63.Sh FILES 64.Bl -tag -width /dev/tty -compact 65.It Pa /dev/tty 66.El 67.Sh SEE ALSO 68.Xr crypt 3 , 69.Xr readpassphrase 3 70.Sh HISTORY 71A 72.Fn getpass 73function appeared in 74.At v7 . 75.Sh BUGS 76The 77.Fn getpass 78function leaves its result in an internal static object and returns 79a pointer to that object. 80Subsequent calls to 81.Fn getpass 82will modify the same object. 83.Pp 84The calling process should zero the password as soon as possible to 85avoid leaving the cleartext password visible in the process's address 86space. 87.Pp 88Upon receipt of a SIGTSTP, the input buffer will be flushed, so any 89partially typed password must be retyped when the process 90continues. 91