Generating secure repeatable passwords with OpenSSL

passgen

#!/bin/bash
# see http://www.openssl.org/docs/apps/passwd.html

DOMAIN=$1
PEPPER=55e730a3
SALT=`echo ${PEPPER}${DOMAIN} | shasum | cut -c 1-8`

openssl passwd -1 -salt $SALT | cut -d '$' -f 4

Usage example...
$ passgen github.com
Password: bullshit
ayywx5h0ljGsUgyrYOSGn0

The point here is that you can use a simple to remember word or phrase to generate a secure password. Rather than trying to remember (and type) a very complicated one.

The domain name passed is used as the salt for the password. The domain passed is combined with a fixed value, called PEPPER, and then passed to shasum to get a unique, repeatable, salt.

The previous commit used a fixed salt, I like passing the domain name better.

With version 7f63f1 I switched to combining the domain with a fixed PEPPER value.