passgen

passgen is a tool for generating random passwords. It provides both command line utility and underlying python module.

Installation

passgen requires Python 2.7 or 3.x.

passgen can be installed with pip:

$ pip install passgen

To install it from source, enter the source distribution directory and run:

$ python setup.py install

To install in development mode, run from project directory:

$ pip install --user -e .

Usage (command line)

The most basic usage of passgen command line utility prints 10 random passwords, and is as follows:

$ passgen

passgen accepts several arguments configuring its outcome. Overall synopsis is:

$ passgen [-h] [-l LENGTH] [-n NUMBER]
          [-p] [--limit-punctuation LIMIT_PUNCTUATION]
          [--no-digits | --no-letters]
          [--upper | --lower]

Arguments:

-h	Display help
-l, --length LENGTH
	Passwords should contain LENGTH characters. Defaults to 12.
-n, --number NUMBER
	Generate NUMBER passwords. Defaults to 10.
-p, --punctuation
	Use punctuation characters
--limit-punctuation LIMIT_PUNCTUATION
	Specify allowed punctuation characters
--no-digits	Don't use digits
--no-letters	Don't use letters
--upper	Use only upper case letters
--lower	Use only lower case letters

Examples

Below are some examples of passgen usage.

Output one password:

$ passgen -n 1
faFMKqApw24P

Generate one password with eight characters:

$ passgen -n 1 -l 8
h2MowzBQ

Generate one password with all upper case letters:

$ passgen -n 1 --upper
3TLJ73WQSG6U

Generate one password with punctuation characters:

$ passgen -n 1 -p
oFmCF|s8kCE~

Python module

passgen Python module provides just one function also called passgen.

passgen(length=12, punctuation=False, digits=True, letters=True, case='both')

It returns a random string with length characters. punctuation, digits and letters arguments specify whether punctuation, digits and letters should be used. case specifies letter case and can be one of 'upper', 'lower' or 'both'.

For more details, run:

$ python -c 'import passgen; help(passgen.passgen)'

Testing

The passgen tests are done using unittest. For running the tests, run from project directory:

$ python tests/test_passgen.py -v

TODO

• Implement generation from format string. For example, 'ddd' generating three-digit password.
• Allow occurance restrictions on punctuation, digits and letters. For example, passgen(min-punctuation=1) returning password with at least one punctuation.
• Add the ability to exclude visually similar characters from the result.

License

See LICENSE.