JJB Blog

Random password generator

date +%s | md5 | cut -c -12

Okay, the consensus in the comments seems to be that this does not make great passwords. I’m happy with its level of randomness, but of course I agree that only numbers and lowercase letters does not provide for maximum security.

Looks like there is a password generating program called pwgen, or to generate acceptably random passwords without installing extra software:

openssl rand 9 -base64

(btw– my purpose here is to generate passwords for things like mysql accounts, so they do not need to be human-memorable)


5 Comments

dear god no.

Posted by Matt Sayler on 23 July 2007 @ 10am

pwgen | eyeballs | choose a password that’s easy to remember.

Posted by Anonymous on 23 July 2007 @ 1pm

Uh. md5 only has values 0-f. No capitalization. All numbers and letters.

Also, WTF?

Posted by James Nobis on 23 July 2007 @ 1pm

Please rename to “Really Poor Password Generator”

Posted by Anonymous on 23 July 2007 @ 1pm

If you really want random passwords, please either

1) apt-get install pwgen

For reasonably memorable passwords or..

2) openssl rand 9 -base64

For 72 whole bits of randomness in 12 characters.

Posted by Matt Sayler on 24 July 2007 @ 7am

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