Generate random passwords on Linux with the "pwgen" command
With the recent Cloudflare hack ("CloudBleed"), I currently find myself resetting a bunch of passwords.
I tend to use very random passwords for most of my accounts, where each account uses a different random password. Thankfully, with tools like pwgen this is very quick and easy to do. Before using pwgen, I would normally go to a site like random.org to generate random passwords.
Using `pwgen` is very simple, just install it and type the command `pwgen.`
Install pwgen
sudo apt-get install pwgen
Generate random passwords
pwgen
This will display a bunch or random passwords. However, they're only 8 characters long by default, which nowadays is not very secure as modern GPU cards can easily brute force a password hash of 8 characters long.
Generate random passwords that are 20 characters long
pwgen 20
To control the number of passwords to display on the screen, simply use the -N flag.
Generate 100 random passwords that are 30 characters long
pwgen -N 100 30
Easy, right? :)