'curl https://rclone.org/install.sh | sudo bash' works poorly, because of a cosmetic problem

Feature
#1

Here is a (redacted) screenshot of me being prompted for a password (in xfce4-terminal):

image
image1013×164 20.4 KB

Really! A password is being awaited - but somehow the prompt has got obfuscated by the curl stuff. If I press return, I get told the password is wrong and then prompted again (and if I supply the correct password - at this point or, by mystical intuition, earlier - all is dandy.) Can the command be modified so as to solve the problem.

EDIT: the curl command is recommended here, and it is my preferred way - apart from the problem - to install. And I don't fancy doing su beforehand, and indeed I think there might be another post about a problem with doing that.

#3

You can run:

 curl -s https://rclone.org/install.sh | sudo bash

That hides the output from curl and you just see the password prompt. Not sure if that flag is consistent on every Linux flavor but I'd feel pretty good about that change as it's a bit cleaner.

#4

@Animosity022: right, though it is a shame to lose the curl output. Might this be a bug in curl? Or in sudo? Or does the pipelining need adjustment?

And I am on Mint Cinnamon, by the way.

#5

Ouch!

The -s option would work as @Animosity022 suggested. The -# flag might work too as you might see the password prompt more easily in a bar of hashes

 curl --progress-bar https://rclone.org/install.sh >/dev/null
######################################################################### 100.0%

Does anyone have any examples from other projects? This seems to be fairly common

curl -sf -L

Though to me -f and -L both don't seem terribly sensible.

I think using curl -s would be OK because it is only downloading a tiny script so a progress bar isn't that helpful.

So I think we should add -s to the curl command unless anyone has any violent objections?

#6

I think for simplicity in my head, the -s is easy enough as it's not a huge thing it's download so progress on a file that takes less than a second or two doesn't add much.

Generally if you are curl | bash'ing something, there is an assumption that the source is trusted/good so not seeing the output doesn't seem like a big deal.

#7

OK, lets do that! Anyone want to send a PR?

#8

PS source to that page is here

Which you can find linked at the bottom of the page itself!