Generate a random pass phrase

Inspired by the 'Password Strength' comic by xkcd

What it does

Pass phrases are 5 words; adjective, noun, verb, adjective, noun. I find this pattern produces phrases which are easier to remember/visualise than 4 completely random words as recommended by the xkcd comic.

Usage

From the command line

$ ./pass_phrase.py
elegant pies gather unadvised coal

In your own scripts

There is no easy way to use it in your own scripts at the moment. But if you really must use it right this second in your own scripts then you can do:

>>> from pass_phrase import generate_wordlist, passphrase
>>> adjectives = generate_wordlist("adjectives.txt")
>>> nouns = generate_wordlist("nouns.txt")
>>> verbs = generate_wordlist("verbs.txt")
>>> passphrase(adjectives, nouns, verbs, " ")
'berserk history offend awful earthquake'

Word files

The script expects 3 different word files, I've included examples of these in the repo:

• adjectives.txt
• nouns.txt
• verbs.txt

It will check for the existence of these files in the current directory or in ~/.pass-phrase/

If you want to use other files, or relocate them, use the command line options.

$ ./pass_phrase.py --adjectives="/usr/share/dict/adjectives" --nouns="/usr/share/dict/nouns" --verbs="/usr/share/dict/verbs"

Command line options

Options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --adjectives=ADJECTIVES
                        List of valid adjectives for passphrase
  --nouns=NOUNS         List of valid nouns for passphrase
  --verbs=VERBS         List of valid verbs for passphrase
  -s SEPARATOR, --separator=SEPARATOR
                        Separator to add between words
  -n NUM, --num=NUM     Number of passphrases to generate
  --min=MIN_LENGTH      Minimum length of a valid word to use in passphrase
  --max=MAX_LENGTH      Maximum length of a valid word to use in passphrase
  --valid_chars=VALID_CHARS
                        Valid chars, using regexp style (e.g. '[a-z]')
  -U, --uppercase       Force passphrase into uppercase
  -L, --lowercase       Force passphrase into lowercase
  -C, --capitalise, --capitalize
                        Force passphrase to capitalise each word
  --l337                7#izz R3@l|j !$ 4941Nst 7#3 w#()|e 5P|R!7 0pH t#3
                        7#|N6.
  --l337ish             A l337 version which is easier to remember.
  -V, --verbose         Report various metrics for given options

Thanks

Thanks to Steven Tobin and his version of the XKCD-password-generator, it inspired me to add some additional features to my own version. I've also used bits & pieces of the code from XKCD-password-generator here.

License

MIT: http://aaron.mit-license.org