Is there a Windows solution for a program that relies on netrc?

Question

I have a Perl script that works well on Windows, however one function requires the use of a .netrc file for retrieving credentials.

Is there a Windows equivalent of .netrc, or other solution, on Windows?

Answer 1

Windows should be identical, except for the fact that your home directory is in a different location.

Try looking in the %userprofile% directory for .netrc.

If it's missing you can create it in Explorer by creating a new file named .netrc. (the final . will disappear).

You may need to create an environmental variable named HOME that points to %USERPROFILE%, like so: setx HOME %USERPROFILE%

Answer 2

On Windows OS open cmd.exe, type

echo %HOME%

and then

echo %USERPROFILE%

Output should be the same. If not do this

setx HOME %USERPROFILE%

Afterwards create _netrc file inside %USERPROFILE% directory and add

machine <hostname1>
login <login1>
password <password1>

Example here

Important! on Windows you should create _netrc instead of .netrc

More on this you can read here

Answer 3

You could check for whether you're running on Windows, and if so, inquire of a separate configuration file, rather than looking for .netrc:

my $config_file = '';
if ($^O eq 'MSWin32') {
  $config_file = 'c:\\path\\to\\config.ini';
}
else {
  $config_file = '~/.netrc';
};

The .netrc file by default lives in a user's $HOME, whose equivalent on the Windows platform is c:\{Users|Documents and Settings}\<Username> -- 'Users' for Windows Vista and newer, 'Documents and Settings' for XP and older. You could create a .netrc file there and populate it with the necessary credentials, which would require fewer (or no) changes in your code -- however, it fails to live up to Windows' conventions, which would have configuration files in C:\Users\<Username>\AppData\Local\<Developer>\<Program>\ or similar. It's up to you whether you'd rather modify your code to meet the convention, or just look in the user profile base directory for convenience.

Of course, if you're running the script under Cygwin Perl, you can just create ~/.netrc for the user account, populate it, and have done.