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Bug 1038910

Summary: fprintd: do not show password if user enters one
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Reporter: Ratul Gupta <ratulg>
Component: util-linux-ngAssignee: Karel Zak <kzak>
Status: CLOSED NOTABUG QA Contact: qe-baseos-daemons
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: unspecified    
Version: 6.6CC: tpelka
Target Milestone: rc   
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: Unspecified   
OS: Linux   
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version: Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Story Points: ---
Clone Of: Environment:
Last Closed: 2015-06-03 11:16:55 UTC Type: Bug
Regression: --- Mount Type: ---
Documentation: --- CRM:
Verified Versions: Category: ---
oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description Ratul Gupta 2013-12-06 06:42:03 UTC 
Description of problem: 
Users are useg to entering passwords at login prompts and the like.
It would be nice if libpam-fprintd could swallow the input like
password prompts do, instead of prominentally displaying the user's password
if they type it in.

References:
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=731382

Additional Information:
Also affects rhel-7, fedora-all.
Comment 2 Bastien Nocera 2014-03-25 07:16:50 UTC 
This is a design problem with PAM, worked around by various front-ends (most preeminently gdm, which uses multiple PAM stacks).

Given that this risks breaking a number of PAM front-ends, and concern all PAM modules (say, smartcard logins), this should be fixed in PAM if at all.
Comment 3 Tomas Mraz 2014-03-25 08:54:44 UTC 
PAM library on itself does not have any knowledge about the environment it operates in. I don't really see a way how PAM library could mitigate this. I suppose it might be reasonable to workaround it in the login by switching off the TTY echo before calling pam_authenticate. However there would be a possibility of breaking other modules which might potentially ask for additional non-password information which is supposed to be echoed.
Comment 4 Karel Zak 2015-06-03 11:16:55 UTC 
Closing... 

I don't think we want to play any nasty games with ECHO in login(1) to avoid situation when user accidentally enters a password when there is no password prompt.

It's unreal wish to be resistant to all possible use-cases and user mistakes. It's user responsibility to be careful with password...