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randomword(3) Library Functions Manual randomword(3) NAME randomword, randomchars, randomletters - Generate random passwords (En- hanced Security) LIBRARY Security Library (libsecurity.a) SYNOPSIS int randomchars( char *string, unsigned short int minlen, unsigned short int maxlen, boolean restrict, long seed); int randomletters( char *string, unsigned short int minlen, unsigned short int maxlen, boolean restrict, long seed); int randomword( char *word, char *hyphenated_word, un- signed short int minlen, unsigned short int maxlen, boolean restrict, long seed); PARAMETERS Points at a user-supplied space to contain a null-terminated password. Specifies the minimum length that a generated word can have. Specifies the maximum length that a generated word can have. Specifies whether restrictions are to be imposed on the generated word. This is a boolean integer, where a non-zero integer indications restrictions and a 0 (zero) indicates no restrictions. Specifies an initial seed for the random number generator. Points at a user-supplied space to con- tain a null-terminated random pronounceable password. Contains the hy- phenated version of the generated word. DESCRIPTION These functions generate random passwords for use in password selec- tion. All of them are generated by the system, based on seeds and set in the function. Such seeds can be created with the drand48(), rand(), or random() functions. The randomchars() function places a null-terminated password composed of random printable ASCII characters into the string parameter and re- turns the length of the generated string. The minlen parameter can equal maxlen, but cannot be greater than maxlen, and cannot be nega- tive. The user space preallocated is at least maxlen for string. The smaller minlen and maxlen are, the smaller the selection space of ran- dom words. The restrict parameter is 0 (zero) when no restrictions are placed on the generated word. It is nonzero when the words generated pass the tests of the acceptable_password() function. The seed parameter is used by the function only on the first time it is called; the parameter is ignored on subsequent calls. The randomletters() function places a null-terminated password composed of random lower-case letters into the string parameter and returns the length of the generated word. The minlen, maxlen, restrict, and seed parameters are the same as for the randomchars() function. The randomword() function places a null-terminated random pronounceable password into the word parameter and returns the length of the gener- ated word. The minlen, maxlen, restrict, and seed parameters are the same as for the randomchars() and randomletters() functions. The user space preallocated is at least 2*max - 1 for hyphenated_word. NOTES The password generator relies on a random number generator that pro- duces uniformly distributed integers. Because the password generator invokes the random number generator many times even for one word, the random number generator has to produce a uniform distribution. The pe- riod (distinct numbers produced given a particular seed) and number space (range of possible numbers) must both be large. The drand48() functions are used for this purpose. Programs using these functions must be compiled with -lsecurity. FILES System password file. System group file. RELATED INFORMATION Functions: acceptable_password(3), drand48(3), rand(3), random(3). Commands: login(1), passwd(1). delim off randomword(3)