getpass() wrapper

If you just want to enter password on a Unix-like system you could use
the following:

<?php

function get_password($prompt)
{
$ostty = stty -g;
system(
"stty -echo -icanon min 1 time 0 2>/dev/null || " .
"stty -echo cbreak"
);

echo "$prompt: ";

// Get rid of newline when reading stdin
$r = substr(fgets(STDIN), 0, -1);

echo "\n";
system ("stty $ostty");

return $r;
}

$p = get_password("Password");
echo "Pasword entered: $p\n";

?>

Edin

Sara Golemon wrote:

I am working on a command line client (written in php, run by
php-cli) and I'd like to use a password entry as in mysql client -
with no echoing etc. I've found the function which I need:

  #include <unistd.h>
  char *getpass( const char * prompt );

But in man getpass it is marked as "This function is obsolete. Do not
use it.". More from the manpage: "Present in SUSv2, but marked LEGACY.
Removed in POSIX.1-2001."

Can this function be somehow included in next release of PHP, at
least in coditional way so I can check its availability with
function_exists? (a). Or I should patch my instance of PHP (b) or
stick forever to a small binary written in C which then I call with
backtick operator (c).

What you recommend, developers of PHP ?

For one thing, I don't recommend wrapping obsoleted functions as a
builtin. You're welcome to do this in an extension, it'll even be
welcomed in PECL, but it's not something which belongs in the mainline
distribution.

Note that since this function produces output (to stdout -- bypassing
PHP's output layer), you may run into problems using this with any SAPI
other than cgi or cli (not that you would use it elsewhere anyway), and
it'll be completely out-of-band of any uses of ob_start() and family.

I also would be inclined to doubt that this integrates with PAM, so god
help you if you're using a distributed authentication scheme such as
LDAP, kerberos, etc...

Anyway, in case it wasn't obvious from my steadily darkening tone,
-1 from me.

-Sara

Thank you, it seems that PECL is the proper place for such a feature /
function, sorry that I forgot that possibility before.

Its really only for CLI - all I wanted is a safe password entry for the
end-user, to quickly login by different user/pass as I do a lot of auth
testing of my ordbms. By safe I mean no shell history or password
visibility/storage anywhere, so using environment variables, parameters
and files is out and stdin is used for other purposes.

Btw. both mysql client (where I found this function) and openssh client
uses it, and maybe others too.

At my next code cleanup I take it PECL. Maybe not directly the getpass
but the one from APR (apr_getpass.c) which implements some fallbacks.

Thank you once more,

Daniel.