How to Hide Password Characters in STDIN Perl Windows

Perl is a popular scripting language used by system administrators to automate processes on their computers. It's a powerful interface designed to be used from the command prompt, but many developers are concerned about the way Perl's standard input shows all characters typed (or echos), since this poses a security risk when entering passwords. To hide password characters, you must install the Term::ReadKey library from the Perl CPAN. Though some features from the Term::ReadKey library do not work with Windows, the "noecho" mode works properly.

Things You'll Need

• Term::ReadKey

Instructions

1. Open a text editor, create and save a file with the name "passwordtest.pl."

2. Paste the following into the file to load the "Term::ReadKey" library:

   use Term::ReadKey;

3. Paste the following code to prompt the user for a password:

   print 'Please enter your password: ';

4. Paste the following to turn off the keyboard echos:

   ReadMode 'noecho';

5. Paste the following to read the password:

   my $password = ReadLine;

6. Paste the following to turn keyboard echos back off:

   ReadMode 'normal';

References

• CPAN: Term::ReadKey