This article will show you how to Generate Random Passwords from Command Line. Most websites and apps require users to sign up for an account with a safe password so that they can customize the experience for each user. Even though this makes things better for website writers, it doesn’t make things easier for users.
Some of the safest passwords you can use are ones that are made up of a bunch of different things. Randomizing possible passwords from the command line can be done in a number of ways. Generated characters can be used as safe passwords. When making a password, sometimes the rules are so strict that it’s hard to come up with a good one that follows the rules.
It would be much easier if there was a tool that could make safe passwords that meet the rules of any website or app. There are lots of times when we need to come up with a strong password. Humans aren’t very good at being lucky, which is why making a random password is one of the most important things you can do to keep your data secure and private.
How to Generate Random Passwords from Command Line
You can change any of these orders to get a different length password, or you can just use the first x characters of the generated password if you don’t want such a long one. You shouldn’t have to remember them anyway if you use a password manager like LastPass.
- This method uses SHA to hash the date, runs through base64, and then outputs the top 32 characters.
date +%s | sha256sum | base64 | head -c 32 ; echo
- This method used the built-in /dev/urandom feature, and filters out only characters that you would normally use in a password. Then it outputs the top 32.
< /dev/urandom tr -dc _A-Z-a-z-0-9 | head -c${1:-32};echo;- This one uses openssl’s rand function, which may not be installed on your system. Good thing there’s lots of other examples, right?
openssl rand -base64 32
- This one works a lot like the other urandom one, but just does the work in reverse. Bash is very powerful!
tr -cd '[:alnum:]' < /dev/urandom | fold -w30 | head -n1
- Here’s another example that filters using the strings command, which outputs printable strings from a file, which in this case is the urandom feature.
strings /dev/urandom | grep -o '[[:alnum:]]' | head -n 30 | tr -d '\n'; echo
- Here’s an even simpler version of the urandom one.
< /dev/urandom tr -dc _A-Z-a-z-0-9 | head -c6
- This one manages to use the very useful dd command.
dd if=/dev/urandom bs=1 count=32 2>/dev/null | base64 -w 0 | rev | cut -b 2- | rev
- You can even create a random left-hand password, which would let you type your password with one hand.
Passwords keep people from getting into your computer, apps, and other personal information (like your credit card number, SSN, etc.) without your permission. The safer you are, the better your passwords. Since everything is online now, it’s important to have strong passwords to protect yourself from hackers with bad intentions and harmful software.