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PWGEN(1)               DragonFly General Commands Manual              PWGEN(1)


NAME

       pwgen - generate pronounceable passwords


SYNOPSIS

       pwgen [ OPTION ] [ password_length ] [ number_passwords ]


DESCRIPTION

       pwgen generates passwords which are designed to be easily memorised by
       humans, whilst being as secure as possible.

       The pwgen program is designed to be used both interactively, and in
       shell scripts. Hence, its default behaviour differs depending on
       whether the standard output is a tty device or a pipe to another
       program. Used interactively, pwgen will display a screenful of
       passwords, allowing the user to pick a single password, and then
       quickly erase the screen. This prevents someone from being able to
       "shoulder-surf" the user's chosen password.

       When standard output is not a tty, pwgen will only generate one
       password, as this tends to be much more convenient for shell scripts.
       This also assures that pwgen is compatible with other versions of this
       program.


OPTIONS

       -c, --capitalise, --capitalize
              Include at least one capital letter in the password. This is the
              default if the standard output is a tty device.

       -C     Print the generated passwords in columns. This is the default if
              the standard output is a tty device.

       -n, --numerals
              Include at least one number in the password. This is the default
              if the standard output is a tty device.

       --no-numerals
              Don't include a number in the generated passwords.

       --no-capitalise, --no-capitalize
              Don't bother to include any capital letters in the generated
              passwords.

       -s, --secure
              Generate completely random, hard-to-memorise paswords. These
              should only be used for machine passwords, since otherwise it's
              almost guaranteed that users will simply write the password on a
              piece of paper taped to the monitor...

       -v, --version
              Display the program version and exit.

       -h, --help
              Display a help message and exit.

       -1     Print the generated passwords one per line.


AUTHOR

       This version of pwgen was written by Ian Macdonald <ian@caliban.org>.
       It is modelled after a program originally written by Brandon S. Allbery
       and then later extensively modified by Olaf Titz, Jim Lynch, and
       others. It was later rewritten from scratch by Theodore Ts'o. This man
       page is lifted largely from Theodore Ts'o's man page.


SEE ALSO

       passwd(1)

pwgen                             April 2004                          PWGEN(1)

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