Is it possible to pass username and password in makefile?

Question

Hi I'm using makefile to do lots of compiling and remote works.

In many occasion I would need to type in username and password for remote connection, VPN, code upload and other stuffs.

May it be possible to use makefile to auto type in the credential information?

Thanks a lot!

Answer 1

It is not the role of make to do this kind of thing. So there is no special support in a Makefile for handling credentials.

However, if you can get a shell script to do the "auto-typing" or provide the required credentials some other way, then you should be able to use the same approach in a Makefile .

We can't advise you on how the script would work, because you have given no actual details of the commands etc that you are using for remote access.

But if you are using ssh from a Linux box, you could use public key authentication and ssh-agent and avoid the problem entirely. This would be a lot more secure than:

• using user / password auth at all, and
• embedding passwords in your makefiles ... for someone else to find when they steal your laptop or whatever.