passgen/README.md

passgen

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Building
• Usage
• Options
• Examples

Introduction

passgen is a password generation tool that allows you to create secure and customizable passwords. It generates passwords based on user-specified criteria, including password length and character types (lowercase letters, uppercase letters, digits, and special characters). You can also use passgen without any options to generate a random password with default settings.

Building

This tool is provided as source code and can be built using make. By just typing make in the terminal within the code's directory:

make

You should now have an executable named passgen. You can copy it to a location in your PATH for easy access.

Usage

To use passgen, open your terminal and execute the program with the desired options.

./passgen [OPTIONS]

Options

passgen provides the following command-line options:

• -L, --length:

  • Specify the length of the generated password. Default is 24 characters.
  • Valid range: 5 to 4096 characters.

• -l, --lower-case:

  • Enable lowercase letters in the password.

• -u, --upper-case:

  • Enable uppercase letters in the password.

• -d, --digits:

  • Enable digits in the password.

• -s, --special:

  • Enable special characters in the password.

• -h, --help:

  • Display the help message and exit.

• -v, --version:

  • Display the program version and exit.

Examples

1. Generate a default password:

   ./passgen
   

   This will generate a 24-character password with a mix of lowercase letters, uppercase letters, digits, and special characters.

2. Generate a password with specific options:

   ./passgen -L 12 -lud
   

   This will generate a 12-character password with only lowercase letters, uppercase letters, digits, and no special characters.

3. Display help message:

   passgen -h
   

   This will display the usage and available options.

4. Display version:

   passgen -v
   

   This will display the version of Passgen.