feed-password-daemon
When run, feed-password-daemon:
- takes as arguments: a command that will be wrapped and its arguments
- takes a password on TTY and caches it
- run this forever:
- waits for SIGUSR1 to be received
- when SIGUSR1 is received, it runs the wrapped command
- waits for a password prompt coming from the wrapped command
- feeds the cached password to the wrapped command
But why?
Here's an example, concrete use case: vdirsyncer and Thunderbird can both perform periodic remote calendar synchronization (thanks to CalDAV) which is often password-protected. However:
- being a GUI app, Thunderbird stays open, reads the password at start and caches it in RAM, so it can use the password when needed, without asking it again
- being a command-line, non-TUI app, vdirsyncer has no means to cache the password and is forced to ask it at every sync (possibly delegating to pass, but the problem still stands)
This is where feed-password-daemon helps: it will cache the CalDAV password and wrap vdirsyncer to run it when desired and feeds it the password, without asking it again, à la Thunderbird.
Options
By default the initial password is read from the TTY.
--password-from-env=VARIABLE: read password from environment VARIABLE instead of TTY--password-from-file=FILE: read password from FILE instead of TTY--password-from-stdin: read password from stdin instead of TTY
Other:
--reply-to-prompt=PROMPT: feed password when PROMPT is found--pid-file=FILE: write pid of daemon to FILE