- keytool (The keytool command stores the keys and certificates in a keystore) - pwgen (PWGen is a professional password generator capable of creating large amounts of cryptographically-secure passwords) You can reach Zonker at and follow him on Twitter.//. Formerly the openSUSE Community Manager for Novell, Brockmeier has written for Linux Magazine, Sys Admin, Linux Pro Magazine, IBM developerWorks,, CIO.com, Linux Weekly News, ZDNet, and many other publications. Joe ‘Zonker’ Brockmeier is a freelance writer and editor with more than 10 years covering IT. If you’re not already using it, I strongly recommend checking it out! I’ve been using pwgen for years and use it to create memorable passwords, as well as ridiculously long passwords for sensitive accounts that I can save in a password manager. You should be able to find pwgen on most Linux distributions, and I believe it’s also packaged for FreeBSD. The output is slightly different when not sending to a TTY be sure to check the man page for the options that you should use. Note that pwgen is usable in scripts, so you can tap it for automated systems where you create user accounts and need random secure passwords. Also, if an attacker gains access to your computer, he may be able to see the command with seed and filename in your history. As the pwgen documentation warns, it’s important to remember that this kind of password may not be as random as others. I’d recommend using a file you generate explicitly for the purpose, and then saving the file somewhere safe. Again - it’s very important to pick a file that will not change because pwgen is using the SHA1 hash of the file as part of the generation of the new password. This may work in your favor if you can remember which of the 120 you chose. Note that if you don’t specify the -1, pwgen will go ahead and generate a full 120 passwords. What you need is a file, a seed phrase and pwgen with the -H (hash) option: But if you have a file that will not change you can use it to generate a password and re-create it again. What if you must be able to recall a password at a later date? The normal mode for pwgen is to create a set of random passwords that can’t be re-created. Of course, the idea is that the password should be easy to memorize, so when you start getting past 10 characters it starts getting fairly difficult. This way you can find one that looks easier to grapple with. For example, to get a 12-character password, use pwgen 12, and the utility will spit out a set of 120 possible passwords from which to choose (six columns, 20 rows). The default should be fine for most uses, but if you want a longer password, just use pwgen NN, where NN is the length of the password you’d like to generate. Each has at least one uppercase character and one number. None of the passwords are likely to be guessed, they’re not easily subject to dictionary attacks, and they should be suitable for most use cases. Let’s look at a few examples from its default output: Eisahpe6 ZiaGae4A ^8Ts'o9^ chahWah7 AciPoos7 Oofeeph1 ^13pwgen14^ ^15pwgen16^ When you use pwgen in its default mode, it creates a password that should be “pronounceable.” That doesn’t mean it will be a word, but it will have strings of characters you can wrap your tongue around to make it easier to memorize. The passwords created by pwgen are also meant to be easily memorized. Long before Ext4 was on the scene though, T’so hacked together this GPL’ed password generator that creates strong passwords - with a helpful twist. Password Generator is a utility written by Ted Ts’o, whom you may remember from such open source projects as the Linux kernel’s Ext4 filesystem. Enter Pwgen, a utility that generates random (but pronounceable) passwords. One of my favorite tools for creating secure passwords is Password Generator, also known as pwgen, a utility that generates random (but pronounceable) passwords.Ĭoming up with good passwords is never easy. Coming up with good passwords is never easy.
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