Goal

This utility script helps generate a set of rebuildable domain-specific strong passwords out of a single easy to remember master password and domain specific keys such as "login@host".

The generated passwords are strong since they use 8 characters out of a 62 characters long alphabet (lowercase and uppercase letters + digits) that are not to be found in any dictionary.

You can always re-generate your passwords by taking the base 62 encoding of the sha1 hash of the concatenation of your master password and domain key.

Install

With setuptools:

$ easy_install -U virtualkeyring

Usage

Use the interactive command-line tool vkr that should now be in your PATH, and type in you master password and domain key:

$ vkr
master password: mysecret
domain key [e.g. 'login@host']: foobar@example.com
your password is: hRnf6udB
please clean your console (ctrl-L) after usage

To generate passwords with length larger that 8 chars, for instance for an ssh key passphrase:

$ vkr -l 20
master password: mysecret
domain key [e.g. 'login@host']: foobar@id_rsa
your password is: ClRsTi3btiFhT1weDq0L
please clean your console (ctrl-L) after usage

To generate passwords for a specific alphabet:

$ vkr -a 42aAuUTt
master password: mysecret
domain key [e.g. 'login@host']: foobar@example.com
your password is: AatT2UAa
please clean your console (ctrl-L) after usage

Changes

• 1.3 (2008-06-01): add factorized out password fetching from stdin (thanks to gawel)
• 1.2 (2008-05-16): add -l and -a parameters
• 1.1 (2008-02-16) use getpass to read the master password from the keyboard
• 1.0 (2007-11-10) initial relase

Online version

I plan to run a pylons-based version of the script at https://oliviergrisel.name (not yet done).