Read password from stdin

Question

Scenario: An interactive CLI Python program, that is in need for a password. That means also, there's no GUI solution possible.

In bash I could get a password read in without re-prompting it on screen via

read -s

Is there something similar for Python? I.e.,

password = raw_input('Password: ', dont_print_statement_back_to_screen)

Alternative: Replace the typed characters with '*' before sending them back to screen (aka browser' style).

score 297 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 19 '09 at 08:29

297

>>> import getpass
>>> pw = getpass.getpass()

answered Nov 19 '09 at 08:29

mjv

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Yeah, them batteries. ;-) One of the cool thing with Python is its ability to bind easily with binaries in other language, in particular C, hence leveraging a lot of existing stuff (such as getpass(), I believe) – mjv Nov 19 '09 at 08:35
2

Even better, getpass() deals with the situation in which a CLI tool is being fed data via STDIN and yet you want the ability to type the password yourself. Great tool! – Tiemen Jul 22 '13 at 21:00
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@Tiemen but I came here looking for a solution to do this because getpass() is still prompting me and waiting for a password even though I piped the password to my script – Michael Dec 21 '13 at 21:30
1

For me, getpass poppoed up a window (not what I wanted, nor what its help said) and didn't obscure the password when I typed it in! Code to reproduce: import getpass; getpass.getpass() – Michael Grazebrook Sep 16 '14 at 16:22
@Tiemen IIRC, unix tools support that by re-opening the stderr stream for reading, instead of for writing. It's a neat hack, yeah? – jpaugh Sep 17 '16 at 16:46
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but this doesn't display '*' as one types. How does one achieve this? – Jason Nov 17 '17 at 05:27
@Jason you don't want that – OrangeDog Sep 22 '21 at 09:59

Stephan202 · Answer 2 · 2009-11-19T08:42:33.210

Yes, getpass: "Prompt the user for a password without echoing."

Edit: I had not played with this module myself yet, so this is what I just cooked up (wouldn't be surprised if you find similar code all over the place, though):

import getpass

def login():
    user = input("Username [%s]: " % getpass.getuser())
    if not user:
        user = getpass.getuser()

    pprompt = lambda: (getpass.getpass(), getpass.getpass('Retype password: '))

    p1, p2 = pprompt()
    while p1 != p2:
        print('Passwords do not match. Try again')
        p1, p2 = pprompt()

    return user, p1

(This is Python 3.x; use raw_input instead of input when using Python 2.x.)

Read password from stdin

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