Is there a Windows solution for a program that relies on netrc?

Question

I have a Perl script that works well on Windows, however one function requires the use of a .netrc file for retrieving credentials.

Is there a Windows equivalent of .netrc, or other solution, on Windows?

Solution 1

Windows should be identical, except for the fact that your home directory is in a different location.

Try looking in the %userprofile% directory for .netrc.

If it's missing you can create it in Explorer by creating a new file named .netrc. (the final . will disappear).

You may need to create an environmental variable named HOME that points to %USERPROFILE%, like so: setx HOME %USERPROFILE%

Solution 2

On Windows OS open cmd.exe, type

echo %HOME%

and then

echo %USERPROFILE%

Output should be the same. If not do this

setx HOME %USERPROFILE%

Afterwards create _netrc file inside %USERPROFILE% directory and add

machine <hostname1>
login <login1>
password <password1>

Example here

Important! on Windows you should create _netrc instead of .netrc

More on this you can read here

Comments

[Aaron Miller]

.netrc by default doesn't exist under Windows, and would need to be created especially for this script. Putting it in %userprofile% would fail to live up to the Windows convention, which has per-user configuration files in c:\Users\<Username>\AppData\.... See my answer for more.

[Louis Waweru]

Sorry, I should have mentioned that it's not my script (and it's over 600KB in size).

[Louis Waweru]

I actually tried to create one, but it's not a valid filename.

[TheCompWiz]

you actually can have a file named that... windows is just dumb and thinks the .netrc is the extension without a filename. Try naming the file ".netrc." (with a dot at the end as well as the beginning)

[user1686]

@AaronMiller: It's not supposed to live up to the Windows convention anyway; the function that looks for ~/.netrc was just imported from Unix. (Windows has a completely different credential storage mechanism anyway.) And no, such files don't exist by default on Unix either.

[user1686]

@Louis: Either create it via command line (e.g. copy nul .netrc) or by entering the name with double quotes (".netrc") in Notepad's "Save" dialog.

[Louis Waweru]

The trailing . did the trick!

[Aaron Miller]

@grawity The reason I mention living up to the Windows convention is that there are some instances in which not doing so can be harmful, as for example when using the ComboFix tool to clean up a malware infestation -- older versions, at least, and perhaps the current version as well, will blow away anything in %userprofile% that wasn't created by the system, on the assumption that it might be malware. Whether it's a concern in any given circumstance is an open question, but it's definitely worth considering in light of the potential drawbacks.

[user1686]

@Aaron: How does it even know what was created by the system? I noticed that Windows 7 has made the profile directory much more visible in the GUI than previously (it became similar to a "home" directory), so I imagine many people would create their own files there...

[Aaron Miller]

@grawity It doesn't know so much as it guesses, and assumes anything it doesn't recognize is necessarily hostile -- perhaps not all that unreasonable given that it's intended to be run on a potentially quite badly infected machine, and that user- or program-created files in %userprofile% aren't actually all that common. Generally, it seems that Windows users are expected to use the Documents, Downloads, My Pictures/Music/&c. folders, rather than the profile root itself, even under Windows 7. (I also haven't run ComboFix on a Windows 7 box; it may behave differently there.)

[Peter Mortensen]

Or the filename should be _netrc?

[Peter Mortensen]

Or the filename should be _netrc?