Generate Random Passwords

[jamba]

Generating password is simple:

password8.sh:

#!/bin/sh
cat /dev/urandom| tr -dc '0-9a-zA-Z!@#$%^&*_+-'|head -c 8;echo

This script generates 8 characters long password.
To change number of characters, replace 8 with other number.
'0-9a-zA-Z!@#$%^&*_+-' defines character set used in password. If you need another charset, change this string to suit your needs.

[jamba]

www.linuxhowtos.org/Security/password_generator.htm

A Quick and Easy Password Generator
This short tutorial shows you how to quickly generate a list of passwords using /dev/urandom, and uuencode.

Code Listing 1

% dd if=/dev/urandom count=1 2> /dev/null | uuencode -m - | sed -ne 2p | cut -c-8
v1/oVN+S

The options for the cut command indicate the length of the password generated (in this case, 8 characters). This could easily be expanded to generate a whole list of passwords using the for command.

Code Listing 2

% for ((n=0;n<10;n++)); do dd if=/dev/urandom count=1 2> /dev/null | uuencode -m -| sed -ne 2p | cut -c-8; done
rSQpeNNr
PesAIgAb
GUEgoUwT
U3p+kfqa
WSgSwgq6
+9aGihvl
dYfcaV3b
guFtI7eZ
+kzKuW0f
jJpW/8yO


To create a longer or shorter list, just change the limit in for (in this case 10).

If you want to generate WEP keys for wireless networking, you can use a similar procedure, replacing uuencode with md5sum:

Code Listing 3

% dd if=/dev/urandom count=1 2> /dev/null | md5sum | cut -c-26 aaab69457c239ef1d52617d1fa

Adapted from www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/20030804-newsletter.xml