Linux / UNIX Generate Passwords using /dev/urandom

To generate strong passwords in Linux or UNIX systems using the /dev/urandom device, you can use the tr command to translate random bytes into printable characters.

Here’s an example command that generates a random 12-character password using /dev/urandom:

This command uses tr to delete (-d) any characters that are not alphanumeric (A-Z, a-z, 0-9), and then uses head to limit the output to 12 characters. The echo command is used to add a newline character at the end of the output.

You can adjust the length of the password by changing the argument to head to a different value.

You can also make the password more secure by adding special characters to the character set used by tr. For example, to include special characters in the password, you can modify the command like this:

This adds the characters _, @, #, $, %, ^, &, *, (, ), -, +, and = to the character set used by tr, and generates a 16-character password.

Note that the tr command generates passwords that are completely random, which can be difficult to remember. It is recommended to use a password manager to securely store and manage passwords, rather than relying on memory.