freedom

Freedom is a terminal input autofiller written in Python 3. Ever wished you could do this?

echo mypassword | ssh myuser@i_need_no_protection_thanks

Spoiler: that doesn't work. ssh (and friends) read passwords straight from the terminal, not from stdin, so piping into them does nothing. That's exactly why freedom exists. Now you really can. Enjoy!

How it works

freedom runs your command inside a pseudo-terminal, watches its output and the moment it sees a prompt that matches a regex (a password prompt by default), it types your input for you. To the wrapped program it looks like a human is typing, so it works where a plain pipe fails.

It also returns the wrapped command's exit code, so it behaves correctly inside scripts (freedom ssh ... && next-step).

Requirements & install

• Linux / macOS / any Unix (uses pty and termios, not Windows)
• Python 3, no external dependencies, standard library only

git clone https://github.com/brightio/freedom
cd freedom
chmod +x freedom

Basic usage

echo P@55w0rd | ./freedom ssh user@host
echo P@55w0rd | ./freedom scp host:file /tmp
echo P@55w0rd | ./freedom sudo -i
echo P@55w0rd | ./freedom su -

Advanced usage

Got more than one prompt? Give one line of input per prompt. Each line answers the next matching prompt in order:

echo -e "P@55w0rd\nR00tP@ss" | ./freedom ssh -t user@host "su -"

Here P@55w0rd answers the SSH login prompt and R00tP@ss answers the su prompt that follows.

Customization

By default freedom looks for prompts matching:

([Pp]assword(?: for .*)?|[Vv]erification code):

To use your own pattern, put a single regex in ~/.freedom_regex. For example, to also catch a Passphrase: prompt:

([Pp]ass(?:word|phrase)|[Vv]erification code):

⚠️ Security note

freedom makes it easy to hand secrets to a comman which also makes it easy to leak them. Be aware that:

• echo P@55w0rd | ... writes your password into your shell history.
• Command arguments and environment are visible to other users on the machine (e.g. ps).

Prefer reading the secret from a file or a secrets manager and treat anything that touches a password line with care. This tool deliberately trades safety for convenience. Use it where that trade-off is acceptable.

License

See LICENSE.