pwqgen(1)

pwqgen1

Generate quality controllable random passphrase

Usage

pwqgen [options]

Overview

The pwqgen program generates a random passphrase using the libpasswdqc library. Strength of the generated passphrase depends on the amount of randomness read from /dev/urandom.

Options

random=N

(default: random=47) The size of randomly-generated passphrase in bits (24 to 136).

config=FILE

Load config FILE in the passwdqc.conf format. This file may define any options described in passwdqc.conf(5), but only the random and config options are honored by pwqgen.

--version

Output pwqgen program version and exit.

-h, --help

Output pwqgen help text and exit.

Exit status

pwqgen exits with non-zero status when it encounters invalid config file, invalid option, invalid parameter value, when it fails to obtain enough randomness, and in any case when it fails to generate a passphrase.

Files

/etc/passwdqc.conf (not read unless this suggested file location is specified with the config=/etc/passwdqc.conf option).

Releases

8 releases since Debian 6.0 (Squeeze); the text changed 3 times.

  1. 6.0–7
  2. 8–10
  3. 11
  4. 12–13

Authors

The pam_passwdqc module was written for Openwall GNU/*/Linux by Solar Designer. The pwqgen program was originally written for ALT GNU/*/Linux by Dmitry V. Levin, indirectly reusing code from pam_passwdqc (via libpasswdqc). This manual page was written for Openwall GNU/*/Linux by Dmitry V. Levin.

From passwdqc 2.0.3-2+b1 in Debian 13 (Trixie). Parsed by carta from the page's mdoc source.