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Show HN: Random Password Generator
- ankitpati 9y agoA command-line password generator that sources entropy from /dev/urandom (configurable in the source to /dev/random), generates printable ASCII passwords without whitespace, and preserves entropy with a guarantee to waste no more than 63 bits of entropy in a single invocation on most modern machines.
- stephenr 9y agoHow does this compare to say pwgen?
- ankitpati 9y agopwgen 1. Focuses on memorable passwords, and restricts itself to fewer ASCII characters than rpg. 2. Makes no attempt to preserve entropy; waste of entropy is potentially unbounded. This is a performance concern when reading from /dev/random, and a security concern when reading from /dev/urandom. 3. Has large source code spread across multiple files. Good for reusability of components, not so good for auditability and security. 4. Requires Perl and sed.
- stephenr 9y ago1. That's what the `-s|--secure` flag is for 3. Is 1000 lines in 6 files really "large"? 4. On Debian at least, it just requires Libc.
- ankitpati 9y ago1. Sorry, didn't know about that. Just took a cursory glance through the source code. 3. 126 lines in 1 file is still an order of magnitude smaller. 4. The source has a Perl and a sed script, although they are not used in the password generation. (2) is still a concern, especially on servers and embedded computers.