Question

I have an executable that accepts certain command line arguments. Any user on the machine can find the arguments by doing a ps (Unix) or procexp (Windows). Some of these arguments are things like passwords. I know we should not be passing in passwords like that.

Is there any way in code of the executable that I can change so that other users doing a ps/procexp cannot see the command line arguments used to start the executable?

I am sure there is no platform independent way to do this but even if there is any API specific to each platform to do this that will be a good starting point. I look forward to hearing any comments/suggestions or thoughts.

Regards,

Ash

Answer 1

That init example gives me segmentation fault

This one, however, works:

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    char * argv0 = argv[0];
    int i;
    size_t len;
    for (i = 0; i <argc; ++i)
    {
        len = strlen(argv[i]);
        memset(argv[i], 0, len);
    }
    strcpy(argv0, "Hey, can you see me?");
    for (;;);
    return 0;
}