DISQUS

Anonymous · 5 years ago

instead you can use -s option with read to hide the value like password

read -s secret
qmchenry · 5 years ago

Neat trick! Beware that this is OS dependent. It works on all the Linux flavors I've tried but not a Solaris 8 system. If you are writing a script to run on many platforms, the old school method above may be more generic. But if writing a script for a specific system, this is a much slicker method. Thanks for sharing!
sttyecho · 3 years ago

I also add the protection for the interruptions:

trap "stty echo ; exit" 1 2 15
stty -echo
read password
stty echo
trap "" 1 2 15

If the user press Ctrl+C in the password prompt, the normal stty mode will be restored
qmchenry · 3 years ago

Awesome! I've never used trap before, but I'll be using it from now on. That's a great solution to a very annoying problem. Thanks for sharing! Use of the trap command would make a great recipe..

Q
Anonymous · 3 years ago

One more thing (OS and shell-dependent):
use closing redirection in the stty command:
stty -echo >&- 2>&-

This helps to avoid obsolete "No terminal" message in the scripts.