How to automate generation of htpasswd from command line without typing password?

Question

I am trying to automate creating a password from the command line. I have tried the below but it still keeps asking for the password.

echo "test101" | htpasswd -c ~/temp/password admin

How to generate automate htpasswd from command line without typing password?

score 62 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 15 '12 at 17:12

62

Why not just use:

htpasswd -b -c ~/temp/password admin test101

answered Apr 15 '12 at 17:12

GavinCattell

7

Although it's old: Because all other users on the same system may be able see "test101" in /proc//cmdline for a short moment, if they are watching. – phi1010 Mar 04 '19 at 21:25
2

This is the case if your system has more than 1 users, for creating initial example to setup a server and generate htpasswd, this will have no problem. – MaXi32 Dec 25 '20 at 23:03

score 22 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 05 '18 at 09:58

22

If you don't have htpasswd installed (for example when using nginx) you can generate a password with openssl.

printf "USER:$(openssl passwd -crypt PASSWORD)\n" >> .htpasswd

answered Oct 05 '18 at 09:58

elim

2

`-crypt` is considered insecure today. You can use `-apr1` instead. – Gustavo Vargas Jul 21 '19 at 13:44
1

Nginx also accepts SHA-256, that's even better then APR1 (MD5), for that use `-5` instead. – Gustavo Vargas Jul 21 '19 at 13:54
@GustavoVargas I've used this in the past but now it gives an error: `passwd: Option unknown option -5`. – Fabian Barney Jan 24 '21 at 15:17
@FabianBarney maybe your openssl is outdated. Take a look on this openssl command line reference: https://www.mkssoftware.com/docs/man1/openssl_passwd.1.asp – Gustavo Vargas Jan 24 '21 at 22:15

Daniel Roethlisberger · Answer 3 · 2016-12-14T15:12:37.723

12

The -b switch should do the trick, but the password will still be visible to other users on the system via the process list (ps etc):

htpasswd -b -c ~/temp/password admin test101

edited Dec 14 '16 at 15:12

answered Apr 15 '12 at 17:13

score 9 · Answer 4 · answered May 04 '19 at 11:49

9

From the man page of htpasswd we get this:

-i Read the password from stdin without verification (for script usage).

So just acording to your question something like this should work:

echo "test101" | htpasswd -c -i ~/temp/password admin

But the password will be visible in history and process list.

To automate creating a password from the command line i would write the plain password to a file and do something like that:

htpasswd -c -i ~/temp/password admin < ~/temp/pass_plain

Afterwards delete the pass_plain file.

Also make sure the pass_plain file is not readable by anyone else, also if its just there for a few seconds.

answered May 04 '19 at 11:49

ender.center

This feature was added between httpd-tools-2.2.15-69 (CentOS 6) and before httpd-tools-2.4.6-88 (CentOS 7) so it is not universally available. – stolenmoment Nov 26 '19 at 13:53
`sudo apt-get install apache2-utils` in case of ubuntu – Oscar Acevedo Oct 02 '21 at 04:15

4 Answers4