1--- 2c: Copyright (C) Daniel Stenberg, <daniel@haxx.se>, et al. 3SPDX-License-Identifier: curl 4Long: user 5Short: u 6Arg: <user:password> 7Help: Server user and password 8Category: important auth 9Added: 4.0 10Multi: single 11See-also: 12 - netrc 13 - config 14Example: 15 - -u user:secret $URL 16--- 17 18# `--user` 19 20Specify the user name and password to use for server authentication. Overrides 21--netrc and --netrc-optional. 22 23If you simply specify the user name, curl prompts for a password. 24 25The user name and passwords are split up on the first colon, which makes it 26impossible to use a colon in the user name with this option. The password can, 27still. 28 29On systems where it works, curl hides the given option argument from process 30listings. This is not enough to protect credentials from possibly getting seen 31by other users on the same system as they still are visible for a moment 32before cleared. Such sensitive data should be retrieved from a file instead or 33similar and never used in clear text in a command line. 34 35When using Kerberos V5 with a Windows based server you should include the 36Windows domain name in the user name, in order for the server to successfully 37obtain a Kerberos Ticket. If you do not, then the initial authentication 38handshake may fail. 39 40When using NTLM, the user name can be specified simply as the user name, 41without the domain, if there is a single domain and forest in your setup 42for example. 43 44To specify the domain name use either Down-Level Logon Name or UPN (User 45Principal Name) formats. For example, EXAMPLE\user and user@example.com 46respectively. 47 48If you use a Windows SSPI-enabled curl binary and perform Kerberos V5, 49Negotiate, NTLM or Digest authentication then you can tell curl to select 50the user name and password from your environment by specifying a single colon 51with this option: "-u :". 52