Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH] Let user set vnc password from command line or file

[Daniel P. Berrange]

On Sun, Jan 06, 2008 at 11:45:58AM +0100, Leandro Dardini wrote:
> Here is a little patch to let the user specify the vnc server password 
> in the command line (yes, it is visible with the ps command) or via an 
> external file (better choice). This adds two new arguments, 
> -vnc-password and -vnc-password-file. The file containing the vnc 
> password is in clear.

Providing a password which is clearly visible on the command line to all
users of a machine is unacceptable.  This capability was *explicitly* left 
out when I did the original VNC password support in QEMU.

Providing a password via a file is reasonable, but this should be made
more general than just VNC. QCow2 disks files can be encrypted and require
passwords too. So I think it'd be more useful to have a '-passwd-file file'
arg, and in that file have 1 line per (device, password) pair. 

eg Assuming use of VNC, and 2 qcow encrypted disks one might have:

      vnc: 123456
      hda: mysecret
      hdb: othersecret

Perhaps 'hda' should be the more general syntax used by the -drive param
instead, or even the qcow file name...

Regards,
Dan.
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