The command line option "--http-password" to allow unrestricted HTTP interface access is broken

If you enable the HTTP interface but don't set a password, it tells you to either set a password or set "--http-password" from the command line. But when trying to launch VLC from the command line with the --http-password argument set, it says the argument is unknown.

Steps to reproduce:

• Configure web access (Preferences -> Show All -> Interface -> Main Interface -> Extra Interface Modules -> http) and make sure no password is set in the Lua -> Password field
• Verify that the HTTP Web Interface is functional
• Try to start VLC from the command line using this command: vlc --http-password

Result:

VLC media player 3.0.16 Vetinari (revision 3.0.16-0-g5e70837d)

vlc: unknown option or missing mandatory argument '--http-password'

Try 'vlc --help' for more information.

I would just set a password but VLC doesn't allow a username so it makes it impossible to call the HTTP interface from something like wget or curl. Neither wget nor curl will accept an empty username while you supply a password. According to RFC 1738, "there is no way to specify a password without specifying a user name. So it's impossible AFAIK to use this HTTP interface feature of VLC using remote http calls. By the way, I am using this on a closed LAN so the security risk of an unsecured HTTP interface is a non issue for me.

Solution:

Fix the --http-password argument so it is recognized

Alternate solution:

Set a default username for the HTTP interface authentication or just make it so any username is accepted.