PWGEN(1)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 pro‐
gram. 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 pass‐
word, as this tends to be much more convenient for shell scripts. This
also assures that pwgen is compatible with other versions of this pro‐
gram.
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 oth‐
ers. It was later rewritten from scratch by Theodore Ts'o. This man
page is lifted largely from Theodore Ts'o's man page.
SEE ALSOpasswd(1)pwgen April 2004 PWGEN(1)
