Re: Is getpass(3) really obsolete?

From: Alejandro Colomar (man-pages) <alx.manpages@gmail.com>
Date: Oct 29, 2021, 11:28 UTC
Message-ID: <73ac38a2-c287-4cc1-4e9c-0f9766ac4c0c@gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <a0371f24-d8d3-07d9-83a3-00a4bf22c0f5@gmail.com>

[Add a few CCs, since I mentioned them.]

On 10/29/21 13:15, Alejandro Colomar wrote:

Show 11 quoted lines

> Hi,
> 
> As the manual pages says, SUSv2 marked it as LEGACY, and POSIX doesn't 
> have it at all.  The manual page goes further and says "This function is 
> obsolete. Do not use it." in its first lines.
> 
> But, glibc doesn't seem to have deprecated this function at all.  And it 
> seems to be the most portable way to get a password, even if it's not in 
> POSIX.
> 
> BSDs have readpassphrase(3), but glibc doesn't, so unless you recommend

OpenBSD also marks getpass(3) as obsolete and recommends readpassphrase(3): <https://man.openbsd.org/getpass>

Show 14 quoted lines

> using readpassphrase(3) from libbsd, or plan to add it to glibc, I think 
> getpass(3) should be the recommended function in Linux, and therefore we 
> should remove the hard words against it.
> 
> As a real example, git(1) uses getpass(3).
> <https://github.com/git/git/blob/master/compat/terminal.c>
> 
> What are your thoughts?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Alex
> 
>

-- 
Alejandro Colomar
Linux man-pages comaintainer; https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/
http://www.alejandro-colomar.es/