I fear you will have to use CreateFile together with the appropriate SECURITY_ATTRIBUTES. Maybe you can get around this by "only" having a small race condition by using a named pipe (CreateFile('\\\\.\\pipe\\net-ssh-any-pipe', ... ). The named pipe should roughly appear to a client as a line based file, and will not be stored on disk.

Still, the proper way would be to set up the appropriate SECURITY_ATTRIBUTES in a way that only child processes of the current process are allowed to access that pipe (or a tempfile).

Unfortunately, I don't find a handy example of how to configure an appropriate security descriptor on the MSDN. I guess that creating a DACL (if possible) that only lists the child process as allowed to read would be a good approach.

I'd suggest avoiding the file system completely and using a Named Pipe.

Your perl code creates a named pipe before starting the child process, then supplies the full name of the named pipe to the (asynchronously started) child process as the password file name; it then waits for the child to open the "file" and supplies the password.

Using Win32::Pipe this can be done so:

#! perl -slw
use strict;
use Win32::Pipe;

my $pipe = Win32::Pipe->new( 'MyPipe' );

print system 1, 'c:\test\dummyCapp.exe \\\\.\\pipe\\MyPipe' or die $?;

$pipe->Connect;

$pipe->Write( 'The quick brown fox' );

$pipe->Disconnect;

$pipe->Close;
[download]

I knocked up this as a substitute for the sshg3 app:

#include <stdio.h>

int main( int argc, char **argv ) {
    FILE *f;

    if( argc < 2 ) {
        fprintf( stderr, "No filename given\n" );
        exit( -1 );
    }

    if( f = fopen( argv[1], "r" ) ) {
        int read = 0;
        char pword[ 1024 ];

        if( read = fread( pword, sizeof( char ), 1024, f ) ) {
            printf( "Got: '%s'\n", pword );
        }
        else {
            fprintf( stderr, "Failed to read anything\n" );
            exit( -2 );
        }
    }
    else {
        fprintf( stderr, "Couldn't open file %s: %d\n", argv[1], GetLa
+stError() );
        exit( -3 );
    }
    printf( "Ending...\n" );
    return 0;
}
[download]

And running the perl script gives:

C:\test>junk50
560
Got: 'The quick brown fox'
Ending...
[download]

That was the first thing I tried, but the slave program doesn't like opening pipes.

Sysinternals Process Monitor utility shows that it doesn't try to open anything. It probably runs some internal checks, on the pipe filename or in the parent (pseudo-)directory and they fail.

Then I suggest trying the extprog method: --password=extprog://PROGRAM; and have that program (a perl script) connect to the named pipe to fetch the password and emit it to its stdout.

I'd avoid trying to get into the world of windows permissions; its a nightmare to end all nightmares.

---

With the rise and rise of 'Social' network sites: 'Computers are making people easier to use everyday'

Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.

"Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".

In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.

Check the Environment.SpecialFolder enumeration http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.environment.specialfolder%28v=vs.110%29.aspx