Re: [vile] Some questions about the -k/-K options and encryption

[Chris Green]

On Tue, Jan 13, 2015 at 06:39:34PM -0500, Thomas Dickey wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 13, 2015 at 10:02:11PM +0000, Chris Green wrote:
> > I am trying to make a few things slightly more secure on my system.  
> > 
> > I currently use a script to edit (using vile -k <pwd>) some files, as
> > a result a ps will show the password, though it's actually not too bad
> > as the non-alpha characters I use confuse the output somewhat.
> > 
> > However it would be nice if vile would prompt for the password and
> > thus make it less visible (not totally invisible I know, but still
> > better).
> > 
> > On the vile man page it says:-
> > 
> >     On systems with a getpass() library routine, the user will be
> >     prompted for the encryption key if it is not given on the command
> >     line. 
> 
> getpass is used in the command-line "vile-crypt" program, but not in
> vile itself.  Within vile (see below) you can type
>       :X
> 
OK, the man page is rather misleading then isn't it.

It reads as if the first paragraph under ENCRYPTION is about
vile-crypt and the rest is about vile but that's not so.


> and get a prompt in the minibuffer to set the key.  If you happen to be 
> viewing
> an encrypted buffer which isn't readable, setting the key and re-reading
> the buffer tends to fix that.
> 
> > So when will vile prompt for the encryption key?
> > 
> > If I just do "vile <encrypted file>" I'm just shown the encrypted
> > data.  If I do "vile -k <encrypted file>" then it thinks the name of
> > the file is the encryption key.
> > 
> > Is there a way to force vile to ask for the encryption key? Is there
> 
> yes - that's the "X" command.
> 
> describe-bindings shows these relevant items:
> 
> "set-crypt-key"                       ^X-X
>   or  "X"
>   ( set the encryption key on the current buffer )
> "X"                           ^X-X
>   ( set the encryption key on the current buffer )
> 
> > any difference between -k and -K options?
> 
> no - several of the options are the same for upper/lower, dating back
> to VMS and MS-DOS days where the command-line might be caseless...
> 
OK, thanks for all the clarification.

-- 
Chris Green