View saved password

[LonelyPixel]

I have an SFTP profile that used to work fine, but now the password is rejected. My customer says he hasn't changed the password, yet it's not working anymore. I have old records of passwords but don't know whether the stored one is the one I have recorded. Is there a way to view the saved password, like Firefox can do it? Or can I at least encrypt another password and compare the encrypted values?

[Dave_L]

The connection parameters, including the encrypted password, are in the file BCProfiles.xml. You could save a copy of that file, encrypt another password, and then compare the new BCProfiles.xml file with the saved copy. Unless BC uses some kind of random seeding for the encryption, that should work. And you can always restore the saved copy to get back to the current state.

[Aaron]

Dave_L's suggestion should work assuming the rest of the profile is an exact copy. However, an even easier method to verify is to also try another SFTP client (like Filezilla) to verify the connection fails with multiple software (to rule out a BC4 specific issue). The customer can then also attempt the connection using the trial of BC4 or Filezilla. Also, check the FTP log for the precise error message. Re-prompting for the password does not necessarily mean it is a bad password; there could be another connection error in play.

[LonelyPixel]

I'll try some of these.

The account is on my own server and all other accounts work fine. My customer also has BC4 and he says it works for him. I just wanted to avoid the complete password reset procedure for him. I might also try checking the hashed account password on the server directly, but that's also not available as clear text.

Or I might just forget about the whole password story for any foreign managed accounts and use SSH keys…

[Aaron]

As additional information, BC4 supports Private/Public key pairs, and the Windows version also supports using Putty's Pageant, which can be used for the key management.

From personal experience, troubleshooting key pairs can be a little tricky and sometimes requires a regeneration and properly configuring the permissions of the files on the server side.