Flexible and Secure Password Generation for Ruby

Passw is a Ruby gem for generating secure, customizable passwords programmatically or directly via the terminal. It offers advanced options for character type enforcement, exclusion lists, entropy-based strength assessment, and more.

Requirements

Ruby 2.7 or higher is recommended.

Installation

gem install passw

Or add it to your Gemfile:

gem 'passw'

Getting Started

To generate a password, simply require passw and use the generate method:

require 'passw'

# Generate a 12-character password
Passw.generate(12) # => e.g., ^IUH91234la*

Available Options

Passw supports the following options and combinations of them:

• length: - Set the length of the password (default: 12).
• lowercase: - Include lowercase letters (default: true).
• uppercase: - Include uppercase letters (default: true).
• symbols: - Include special characters (default: true).
• numbers: - Include numeric characters (default: true).
• duplicates: - Allow duplicate characters (default: true).
• enforce_types: - Ensure at least one of each selected character type (default: true).
• avoid_sequences: - Prevent sequential characters (e.g., abc, 123).
• exclude: - Exclude specific characters (e.g., O, 0, I, l).
• min_length: - Enforce a minimum password length (default: 8).
• entropy: - Calculate and display the password's entropy for strength assessment.

Examples

Basic Password Generation

Passw.generate(12) # => e.g., |vwr8j5VV8W

Advanced Usage with Options

Passw.generate(12, {
  lowercase: true,       # Include lowercase letters
  uppercase: true,       # Include uppercase letters
  symbols: true,         # Include symbols
  numbers: true,         # Include numbers
  duplicates: false,     # No duplicate characters
  enforce_types: true,   # At least one of each type
  avoid_sequences: true, # No sequential characters
  exclude: ['O', '0', 'I', 'l'] # Exclude characters that may cause confusion
}) 
# => e.g., qU.b"fo+P>Wl

Command-Line Usage

Passw includes a command-line executable for generating passwords directly from the terminal:

passw <password length>

For example:

passw 12

Advanced Options

The CLI supports additional options for fine-tuning the password. Here's the full list:

• --lowercase: Include lowercase letters (default: enabled).
• --uppercase: Include uppercase letters (default: enabled).
• --symbols: Include symbols (default: enabled).
• --numbers: Include numbers (default: enabled).
• --no-duplicates: Disallow duplicate characters in the password.
• --enforce-types: Ensure at least one of each selected character type (default: enabled).
• --avoid-sequences: Avoid sequential characters (e.g., abc, 123).
• --exclude CHARS: Exclude specific characters, using a comma-separated list (e.g., O,0,I,l).
• --min-length LENGTH: Set a minimum password length (default: 8).

Examples

Generate a Password Without Symbols:

passw 12 --no-symbols

Generate a Password Excluding Specific Characters

passw 12 --exclude O,0,I,l

Generate a Password With No Duplicate Characters and No Sequential Characters

passw 12 --no-duplicates --avoid-sequences

Help

For a full list of options, use:

passw --help

Running the tests

To run the tests for passw, run:

rake test

# Running:
........

Finished in 0.000668s, 11976.0479 runs/s, 70359.2814 assertions/s.

8 runs, 47 assertions, 0 failures, 0 errors, 0 skips

License

This project is licensed under the GPL-3.0-or-later license. See LICENSE for details.

Author

github.com/sn