Using the pwgen utility for password generation

[Lord Boltar]

The pwgen utility helps you in generating strong and easily memorable passwords in seconds. You can install this utility through the following command for Debian/Ubuntu

sudo apt install pwgen

for Arch based systems

sudo pacman -S pwgen

or you can search for pwgen through the Synaptic Package Manager if you have that installed
The pwgen help contains many options through which you can customize the password. Here is how to use this command:
pwgen [ OPTIONS ] [ pw_length ] [ num_pw ]
And, here is how you can see the help:

pwgen --help

For example, the following command will generate one 14 letter password.

pwgen 14 1

The best way to generate a password, in my opinion, is to use the following command:

pwgen -ys 16 1

I have used two options for pwgen in this command; the y flag tells pwgen to generate a secure password and s tells it to come up with a password that includes symbols

As you can see the above password is 16 digits long, quite complicated and therefore secure, then use a program like KeePassXC to store your passwords

 

[KGIII]

To add to the above:

How To: Generate Sufficiently Complex Passwords In The Terminal • Linux Tips

In this article, I will tell you how I use pwgen to generate random passwords. It is a simple command, but comes in surprisingly handy.

linux-tips.us