peek(1): strip down to bare essentials, rewrite man page to match
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82
docs/peek.1
82
docs/peek.1
@@ -12,52 +12,17 @@ peek \(en read from standard input, furtively
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.SH SYNOPSIS
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peek
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.RB ( -1enot )
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.RB ( -p
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.RB [ program
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.RB [ arguments... ]])
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.RB ( -i )
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.SH DESCRIPTION
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Peek reads input from standard input with terminal echo disabled, which may be
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useful to prevent secrets being spied upon by adversaries watching a user's
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screen.
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Peek reads input from standard input with terminal echo disabled.
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.SH OPTIONS
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.B -1
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.B -i
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.RS
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Limits input to a single line (stopping when the newline character is read).
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.RE
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.B -e
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.RS
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Configures peek to output to standard error.
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.RE
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.B -n
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.RS
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Prints ("iNcludes") the terminating character in outputs. This is nonsensical
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if not combined with the
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.B -1
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option.
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.RE
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.B -o
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.RS
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Configures peek to output to standard output.
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.RE
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.B -p
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.RS
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Configures peek to pipe output to an executed child program, e.g. a password
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hashing utility. This is provided as a convenience and to avoid potential
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insecurities resulting from programmer error in scripts.
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.RE
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.B -t
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.RS
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Makes peek exit if not run within a terminal.
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Allows input to come from sources other than terminals (i.e. a pipe).
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.RE
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.SH DIAGNOSTICS
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@@ -70,36 +35,45 @@ still usable after premature termination; if the signal can't be handled, it
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prints an error message and continues. If peek is interrupted, it exits
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unsuccessfully, without an error message.
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.SH RATIONALE
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This tool was originally written to accept passwords in shell scripts, as an
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extremely simple alternative to the GNU Privacy Guard project's pinentry(1).
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Accepting input without showing what is being typed is useful when keying in
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secrets in public settings or places with installed surveillance cameras.
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.SH BUGS
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Accepting secrets in shell scripts is not adviseable in any context.
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This does nothing to prevent others seeing the keyboard being used to input
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secrets or mask the sound of typing. Audio or video recordings of typing can be
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used to determine what was input without needing to see the characters appear
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on the screen.
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If used in a safety-critical application it must be ensured that the
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environment with which peek is used is not compromised.
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Accepting secrets in shell scripts is probably not adviseable.
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On systems that support it, the ioctl(2) command TIOCSTI can be used to insert
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characters into the standard input going to peek. This doesn't allow snooping
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but can be used for general mischief.
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Peek will happily run without outputs, slurping input and doing nothing with
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it.
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.SH EXAMPLES
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This is a command line for POSIX sh(1), using POSIX env(1) to discard the
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environment except for PATH, and htpassword(1) from Apache's utilities to hash
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the input with the bcrypt algorithm, printing the resulting hash:
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This is an sh(1p) command line that hashes a given password. It uses head(1p)
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to only accept one line of input, xargs(1p) and printf(1p) to strip the
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trailing newline, htpasswd(1) from Apache's utilities to hash the input with
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the bcrypt algorithm, and cut(1p) to print only the resulting hash:
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.RS
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.R $ env -i PATH="$PATH" peek -1tp htpasswd -nBi _ | cut -d : -f 2
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.R $ peek | head -n 1 | xargs printf '%s' | htpasswd -nBi _ | cut -d : -f 2
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.RE
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This is a POSIX sh(1) command line that lets a user blindly write into a text
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file, only able to see written lines. Some writers have the habit of
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prematurely revising their work and use tools like this to prevent it:
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This is an sh(1p) command line that lets a user blindly write into a text file,
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only able to see written lines. Some writers have the habit of prematurely
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revising their work and use tools like this to prevent it. It uses mm(1) to
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pipe the output of peek to both the standard error and the regular file
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writing.txt.
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.RS
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.R $ echo Input ^D to quit. && peek -eot >writing.txt
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.R $ echo Input ^D to quit. && peek | mm -eo - >writing.txt
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.RE
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.SH AUTHOR
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@@ -113,4 +87,4 @@ Copyright (c) 2023-2024 DTB. License AGPLv3+: GNU AGPL version 3 or later
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.SH SEE ALSO
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env(1), ioctl(2), ioctl_tty(2), read(1), sh(1)
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ioctl(2), ioctl_tty(2), read(1), sh(1)
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