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.TH PWGEN 1 "June 2001" "pwgen version 2.0"
.SH NAME
pwgen \- generate pronounceable passwords
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B pwgen
[
.I OPTION
]
[
.I pw_length
]
[
.I num_pw
]
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B pwgen
generates passwords which are designed to be easily memorized by humans,
while being as secure as possible.
.PP
The
.B pwgen
program is designed
to be used both interactively, and in shell scripts. Hence,
its default behaviour is differs depending on whether the standard output
is a tty device or a pipe to another program. Used interactively,
.B pwgen
will display a screenful of passwords, allowing the user to pick a single
password, and then quickly erase the screen. This prevents someone from
being able to "shoulder-surf" the user's chosen password.
.PP
When standard output is not a tty,
.B pwgen
will only generate one password, as this tends to be much more convenient
for shell scripts. This also assures that
.B pwgen
is compatible with a previous version of this program.
.B
.SH OPTIONS
.TP
.B \-a, --alt-phonics
This option doesn't do anything special; it is present only for
backwards compatibility.
.TP
.B \-c, --capitalize
Include at least one capital letter in the password. This is the default
if the standard output is a tty device.
.TP
.B \-C
Print the generated passwords in columns. This is the default if the
standard output is a tty device.
.TP
.B \-n, --numerals
Include at least one number in the password. This is the default
if the standard output is a tty device.
.TP
.B \--no-numerals
Don't include a number in the generated passwords.
.TP
.B \--no-capitalize
Don't bother to include any capital letters in the generated passwords.
.TP
.B \-N, --num-passwords=\fInum
Generate
.I num
passwords. This defaults to a screenful if passwords are
printed by columns, and one password.
.TP
.B \-s, --secure
Generate completely random, hard-to-memorize paswords. These should
only be used for machine passwords, since otherwise it's almost
guaranteed that users will simply write the password on a piece of
paper taped to the monitor...
.TP
.B \-h, --help
Print a help message.
.TP
.B \-1
Print the generated passwords one per line.
.SH AUTHOR
This version of
.B pwgen
was written by Theodore Ts'o <tytso@alummit.edu>.
It is modelled after a program
originally written by Brandon S. Allbery, and then
later extensively modified by Olaf Titz, Jim Lynch, and others.
It was rewritten from scratch by Theodore Ts'o because the original program
was somewhat of a hack, and thus hard to maintain, and because
the licensing status of the program was unclear.
.SH SEE ALSO
.BR passwd (1)
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