Full_Name: Russ Allbery Version: 2.3.35 OS: Debian URL: Submission from: (NULL) (171.64.19.147)

A Debian user was confused by the -y option and its inclusion of whitespace in the password. The current man page text does explain this, but it doesn't make a point of it, and I think a bit more explanation would be useful. Here's a patch for the ldapcompare.1 man page; if you think this is a good idea, similar changes could be made to all the other command-line utilities that take the -y option.

--- ldapcompare.1 (revision 805) +++ ldapcompare.1 (working copy) @@ -106,8 +106,12 @@ Use \fIpasswd\fP as the password for simple authentication. .TP .BI -y \ passwdfile -Use complete contents of \fIpasswdfile\fP as the password for -simple authentication. +Use complete contents of \fIpasswdfile\fP, including any leading or +trailing whitespace and any final newlines, as the password for +simple authentication. If the password does not contain a newline, +be careful when creating this file. Many editors and commands like +\fBecho\fP will add a trailing newline, which will then be taken as part +of the password. .TP .BI -H \ ldapuri Specify URI(s) referring to the ldap server(s); only the protocol/host/port