# phpman > man > pinentry-curses(1)

[PINENTRY-CURSES(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/PINENTRY-CURSES/1/markdown)                     General Commands Manual                    [PINENTRY-CURSES(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/PINENTRY-CURSES/1/markdown)



## NAME
       pinentry-curses - PIN or pass-phrase entry dialog for GnuPG

## SYNOPSIS
       **pinentry-curses** **[**_OPTION_...]

## DESCRIPTION
       **pinentry-curses**  is  a  program  that  allows for secure entry of PINs or pass phrases.  That
       means it tries to take care that the entered information is not swapped to disk or  temporar‐
       ily  stored  anywhere.   This  functionality is particularly useful for entering pass phrases
       when using encryption software such as GnuPG or e-mail clients using the same.   It  uses  an
       open protocol and is therefore not tied to particular software.

       **pinentry-curses**  implements  a PIN entry dialog using the curses tool kit, meaning that it is
       useful for users working in text mode without the X Window System.  There are  other  flavors
       that  implement  PIN  entry dialogs that use an X tool kit.  If you have installed any of the
       latter programs then this program is not necessary because the X flavors  automatically  fall
       back to text mode if X is not active.

       **pinentry-curses**  is typically used internally by **gpg-agent**.  Users don't normally have a rea‐
       son to call it directly.

## OPTIONS
### --version
              Print the program version and licensing information.

       **--help** Print a usage message summarizing the most useful command-line options.

       **--debug**, **-d**
              Turn on some debugging.  Mostly useful for the maintainers.  Note that this may reveal
              sensitive information like the entered pass phrase.

       **--enhanced**, **-e**
              Ask for timeouts and insurance, too.  Note that this is currently not fully supported.

       **--no-global-grab**, **-g**
              Grab  the keyboard only when the window is focused.  Use this option if you are debug‐
              ging software using **pinentry-curses**; otherwise you may not be able to to access your X
              session  anymore (unless you have other means to connect to the machine to kill **pinen**‐‐
              **try-curses**).

       **--parent-wid** _N_
              Use window ID _N_ as the parent window for positioning the window.  Note, that  this  is
              not fully supported by all flavors of **pinentry**.

       **--display** _STRING_, **--ttyname** _STRING_, **--ttytype** _STRING_, **--lc-type** _STRING_, **--lc-messages** _STRING_
              These  options are used to pass localization information to **pinentry-curses**.  They are
              required because **pinentry-curses** is usually called by some  background  process  which
              does  not have any information on the locale and terminal to use.  Assuan protocol op‐
              tions are an alternative way to pass these information.

## SEE ALSO
       [**pinentry-gtk-2**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/pinentry-gtk-2/1/markdown),  [**pinentry-qt**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/pinentry-qt/1/markdown),  [**pinentry-fltk**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/pinentry-fltk/1/markdown),  [**pinentry-gnome3**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/pinentry-gnome3/1/markdown),  [**pinentry-tty**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/pinentry-tty/1/markdown),
       [**gpg**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/gpg/1/markdown), [**gpg-agent**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/gpg-agent/1/markdown)

       The  full documentation for **pinentry-curses** is maintained as a Texinfo manual.  If the **pinen**‐‐
       **try-doc** package is installed, the command

              **info** **pinentry**

       should give you access to the complete manual.

## AUTHOR
       This manual page was written by Peter Eisentraut for the Debian project.



                                             27 Jan 2005                          [PINENTRY-CURSES(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/PINENTRY-CURSES/1/markdown)