topic Re: Inputting password from command procedure in Operating System - OpenVMS

Inputting password from command procedure

Mark Vitalis — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 01:02:02 GMT

Hi All,
I’m a beginner to the vms operating system, and having trouble with a command procedure to run an .exe file.
The thing is whenever a program is run on the system the user is prompted to enter a username and password before the program executes.
I’m having a problem inputting this data
(password) from the command procedure, is there a way for this to be done?.

And also I was wondering, is they anyway to input the username and password from the keyboard and the rest of data from the command procedure?

Sincerely,
Mark Vitalis

Re: Inputting password from command procedure

Hein van den Heuvel — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 01:24:39 GMT

Mark,
Welcome to the OpenVMS ITRC Forum!

For most programs you just follow the start of the program with the data such as username password. For example

$! test.com
$run test
username
password
some data
more data
$exit

Your question implies you are concerned about putting a username/passowrd in a script. Rightly so! It woudl be best/desirable to input the password from the originating terminal, and the data from the script or the terminal as appropriate.

If the program was written to accomodate that, this is easy. Specifically the program should se tow different files/streams for the two typs of input. The password should be read from the logical name SYS$COMMAND, and the data from SYS$INPUT.
Check $HELP and USER MANUAL for details on those concepts.
However, if a program just reads from SYS$INPUT (the standard for C, Fortran and so on), then you are pretty much stuck. There is no way to redirect on the fly.

Enjoy,
Hein.

Re: Inputting password from command procedure

Mark Vitalis — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 13:11:52 GMT

Hein,

Thanks alot man, greatly appreciated.

Re: Inputting password from command procedure

EdgarZamora_1 — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 14:04:59 GMT

Regarding your second question:

"And also I was wondering, is they anyway to input the username and password from the keyboard and the rest of data from the command procedure?"

You can try to put this line in your command procedure, right before you invoke the program (whose input you want to enter from the keyboard):

$ DEFINE/USER SYS$INPUT SYS$COMMAND

For example,

$ define/user sys$input sys$command
$ run myprogram !input will be from keyboard
$! program finished
$ write sys$output "Done!"
$ exit

Good luck.

Re: Inputting password from command procedure

Mark Vitalis — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 19:44:49 GMT

Hi Edgar,
Thanks for the assistance.

Sincerely,
Mark Vitalis

Re: Inputting password from command procedure

Edwin Gersbach_2 — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 02:05:09 GMT

We also use a password protected program and in some procedures it gets used multiple times. In order to avoid to have to input the password for each invocation I use the following:

$! -----------------------------------------
$! Get the password once
$! -----------------------------------------
$!
$ SET TERM/NOECHO
$ INQUIRE PWD "Util password"
$ SET TERM/ECHO
$!
$ PIPE WRITE SYS$OUTPUT PWD | -
UTIL Param1 Param2 ...

This can be extended for multiple input lines:

$ PIPE (WRITE SYS$OUTPUT USERNAM ; -
WRITE SYS$OUTPUT PWD ; -
WRITE SYS$OUTPUT "Command" ; -
WRITE SYS$OUTPUT "EXIT") | RUN UTIL

Edwin

Re: Inputting password from command procedure

Wim Van den Wyngaert — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 05:52:36 GMT

Or simply put the username + pwd in a file and read that instead.
And you can install the image with privs so that the user itself can not read the file (w:,s:rwed) but only an installed exe (all with privs).

Wim

Re: Inputting password from command procedure

Mark Vitalis — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 08:18:01 GMT

Thank guys,
you all were very helpful, really appreciate it.

Thanks