We all know the best way to have a secure password is for it to be random. There are a ton of sites out there that will give you a password, but your Linux command line can do it for you with one command. You may need to install it with your favorite package manager:
$ sudo apt-get install makepasswd
$ makepasswd
JAvMdvMu
Here’s a readout of the man page:
makepasswd v1.10, a utility to generate and/or encrypt passwords.
Copyright (c) 1997-1999 by Rob Levin levin@openproject.net. All rights are reserved by
the author. This program may be used under the terms of version 2 of the
GNU Public License.
Last modified on Monday, 7 April 1999 at 22:56 (UCT).
Format: makepasswd [option…]
Options are:
—chars=N Generate passwords with exactly N characters (do not use with
options —minchars and —maxchars).
—clearfrom=FILE Use a clear password from FILE instead of generating passwords.
Requires the —crypt or —crypt-md5 option; may not be
used with options —chars, —maxchars, —minchars,
—count, —string, —nocrypt. Trailing newlines are
ignored, other whitespace is not.
—count=N Produce a total of N passwords (the default is one).
—crypt Produce encrypted passwords.
—crypt-md5 Produce encrypted passwords using the MD5 digest (hash)
algorithm.
—cryptsalt=N Use crypt() salt N, a positive number <= 4096. If random
seeds are desired, specify a zero value (the default).
—help Ignore other operands and produce only this help display.
—maxchars=N Generate passwords with at most N characters (default=10).
—minchars=N Generate passwords with at least N characters (default=8).
—nocrypt Do not encrypt the generated password(s) (the default).
—noverbose Display no labels on output (the default).
—randomseed=N Use random number seed N, between 0 and 2^32 inclusive. A zero
value results in a real-random seed. This option
generates predictable passwords, and should normally
be avoided.
—rerandom=N Set the random seed value every N values used. Specify zero
to use a single seed value (the default). Specify
one to get true-random passwords, but plan on hitting
the CONTROL key a lot while it’s running. ;)
—repeatpass=N Use each password N times (4096 maximum, —crypt or
—crypt-md5 must be set and —cryptsalt may not be set).
—string=STRING Use the characters in STRING to generate random passwords.
—verbose Display labelling information on output.