Showing Asterisks When Typing Password In Linux


~1 min 30 Jan 2022

Some linux beginners get confused when typing their password, because it actually does not echo to the terminal.

Well, this is a quick and simple post to do just that, show output when typing password in linux.

To do this, you will need to run this command

sudo EDITOR="nano" visudo

visudo is the editor used for editing the /etc/sudoers file, and we use the EDITOR env to use an easier editor instead of vim.

Don't try to edit the file with just sudo nano because visudo is the only correct editor to use, because it makes a backup and is much more reliable and secure than just editing the file like you do normally.

Anywhere in the file, add Defaults pwfeedback

And voila! Restart your terminal and run any command with sudo, and when you are typing your password, there will be asterisks.

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