Re: getpass() problem in inetutils (all recent versions, non-Linux)

[Alain Magloire]

> 
> 
> Hello,
> 
> There is a problem with the way inetutils gets a password on Solaris and
> HP-UX.  Inetutils uses getpass(); on Solaris (up to 2.6) and HP-UX (up to
> 10.20) getpass() returns at most MAX_PASS characters.  MAX_PASS is only 8.
> So on some anonymous ftp servers, which require you to enter a full email
> address, most of that address is truncated, and you might be refused
> access.
> 
> In fact, on several other platforms (Ultrix, Tru64) the limit MAX_PASS is
> 16, which is also too short in some cases.  

My, in away that is funny.  We've rely on getpass() as a portable function
provided by the platform, so we would not have to deal with messy tty
handling and setting the echo off.

I guess ... that was not a good idea.

> On Solaris, the solution is simple: a function getpassphrase() does exactly
> what getpass() does, except that there is no 8 char restriction.  Configure
> should generate a "#define getpass getpassphrase" somewhere
> 
> For HP, I'd suggest inserting a getpass() clone (taken from Linux
> or BSD) into libinetutils ...

Agreed, and probably use it as the default for all platforms, I will
put some code for this later this weekend,

Thanks for the feedback.

-- 
au revoir, alain
----
Aussi haut que l'on soit assis, on n'est toujours assis que sur son cul !!!