Password Generator

This repository contains a simple password generator, suitable for command-line use or embedding into a PHP or Python project.

By default, the generator provides secure and random passwords guaranteed to satisfy the following requirements:

• 8 characters.
• At least one character from each of the following categories: upper case letters, lower case letters, digits.
• No homoglyphs (characters that look alike, such as the number 0 and the letter O).

The repository also includes a passphrase generator, which will generate a secure passphrase consisting of four random words from a dictionary file. Perhaps most interestingly, a carefully prepared dictionary file has been included; read the source code for more information, or try it out in a browser.

Files

The following files are included:

• PasswordGenerator.php: PHP password generator.
• passwordgenerator.py: Python password generator.
• passphrasegenerator.py: Python passphrase generator.
• passphrasegenerator.html: JavaScript passphrase generator.

The Python password generator improves on the PHP version in that it uses the OS secure random functionality (/dev/urandom on Linux, CryptGenRandom on Windows), and allows a password length to be specified on the command-line.

Usage

Generate a password or passphrase:

./passwordgenerator.php
./passwordgenerator.py
./passphrasegenerator.py

Generate a password of custom length (not supported in the PHP version):

./passwordgenerator.py 12

Estimate entropy (number of possible password combinations):

./passwordgenerator.php -e
./passwordgenerator.py -e
./passphrasegenerator.py -e

Comparison to alternatives

A password generator is not a novel idea, and most Linux distros include a few in their packages repositories, such as pwgen and makepasswd.

Feature	PasswordGenerator.php	passwordgenerator.py	pwgen	makepasswd
Implementation language	PHP	Python	C	Perl
Password length	Fixed (8)	Any	Any	Any
Password complexity	Alphanumeric	Alphanumeric	Any	Letters only
Uses secure random?	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Avoids homoglyphs?	Yes	Yes	Optionally	No
Estimates entropy?	Yes	Yes	No	No

Passphrase generators are not uncommon either, but most simply use the standard Unix word list in /usr/share/dict/words, which yields passphrases of questionable quality. The real value of the included passphrase generator is thus the included word list.

Public Domain Dedication

To the extent possible under law, the author has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to Password Generator and the files in this repository.

For more information see: http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/