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.Dd $Mdocdate: September 3 2016 $ .Dt GETPASS 3 .Os .Sh NAME .Nm getpass .Nd get a password .Sh SYNOPSIS n pwd.h n unistd.h .Ft char * .Fn getpass "const char *prompt" .Sh DESCRIPTION f -symbolic This function is obsolete. Consider using .Xr readpassphrase 3 . .Ef
p The .Fn getpass function displays a prompt to, and reads in a password from,
a /dev/tty . If this file is not accessible, .Fn getpass displays the prompt on the standard error output and reads from the standard input.
p The password may be up to .Dv _PASSWORD_LEN (currently 128, as defined in the n pwd.h include file) characters in length. Any additional characters and the terminating newline character are discarded.
p .Fn getpass turns off character echoing while reading the password.
p The calling process should zero the password with .Xr explicit_bzero 3 as soon as possible to avoid leaving the cleartext password visible in the process's address space. .Sh RETURN VALUES Upon successful completion, .Fn getpass returns a pointer to a NUL-terminated string of at most .Dv _PASSWORD_LEN characters. If an error is encountered, the terminal state is restored and a null pointer is returned. .Sh FILES l -tag -width /dev/tty -compact t Pa /dev/tty .El .Sh ERRORS l -tag -width Er t Bq Er EINTR The .Fn getpass function was interrupted by a signal. t Bq Er EIO The process is a member of a background process attempting to read from its controlling terminal, the process is ignoring or blocking the SIGTTIN signal or the process group is orphaned. t Bq Er EMFILE The process has already reached its limit for open file descriptors. t Bq Er ENFILE The system file table is full. .El .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr crypt 3 , .Xr readpassphrase 3 .Sh STANDARDS Historically, x versions of .Fn getpass have accepted a password on the standard input if
a /dev/tty is unavailable. This contradicts .St -xpg4.2 but the .Ox implementation is conformant in all other respects. Removed from .St -p1003.1-2001 . .Sh HISTORY A .Fn getpass function appeared in .At v7 . .Sh CAVEATS The .Fn getpass function leaves its result in an internal static object and returns a pointer to that object. Subsequent calls to .Fn getpass will modify the same object.