How do I generate random passwords under Linux / UNIX / Mac OS X and *BSD operating systems?
You can use the following command to generate the random password:
tr -dc A-Za-z0-9_ < /dev/urandom | head -c 16 | xargs
Sample outputs:
1z2G4SVmZOdd4uK4
You can create a bash shell function as follows (add to your ~/.bashrc):
genpasswd() { local l=$1 [ "$l" == "" ] && l=16 tr -dc A-Za-z0-9_ < /dev/urandom | head -c ${l} | xargs }
Now use genpasswd as follows to create 8 character long password:
genpasswd 8
Sample outputs:
Es5Yzf8H
See also:
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more elegant :
genpasswd() { tr -dc A-Za-z0-9_ < /dev/urandom | head -c ${1:-8} | xargs }