Getting a password in C without using getpass (3)?

this should work on linux/macosx, a windows version should use Get/Set ConsoleMode

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <termios.h>

int
main(int argc, char **argv)
{
    struct termios oflags, nflags;
    char password[64];

    /* disabling echo */
    tcgetattr(fileno(stdin), &oflags);
    nflags = oflags;
    nflags.c_lflag &= ~ECHO;
    nflags.c_lflag |= ECHONL;

    if (tcsetattr(fileno(stdin), TCSANOW, &nflags) != 0) {
        perror("tcsetattr");
        return EXIT_FAILURE;
    }

    printf("password: ");
    fgets(password, sizeof(password), stdin);
    password[strlen(password) - 1] = 0;
    printf("you typed '%s'\n", password);

    /* restore terminal */
    if (tcsetattr(fileno(stdin), TCSANOW, &oflags) != 0) {
        perror("tcsetattr");
        return EXIT_FAILURE;
    }

    return 0;
}

You could use the ncurses library to read from standard input without echoing the results to the screen. (Call noecho() before getting any input). The library has been around for ages and works on a wide variety of platforms (the windows version can be found here)