random password generation

[el_kab0ng]

I plan to randomize a password and email a user for future administration of a posting system I'm working on. Anyone have any good reasources on the best way to randomly generate a password?

If not resources, anyone have any code they'd like to share?

[mrmufin]

You mean something like this:

/******************************************************************************
*
* GetRandomString.php
*
* This function returns a random string consisting A-Z, a-z, 0-9. If called
* with no argument, the string returned will be between 16 and 32 characters.
*
******************************************************************************/

// Seed the random generator:
mt_srand((double)microtime() * 1000000);

function GetRandomString($n=0) {
        if($n < 1) {
                $n = mt_rand(16,32);
        }
        $a = 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzQWERTYUIOPLKJHGFDSAZXCVBNM1029384756';
        $l = strlen($a) - 1;
        for($i = 0; $i < $n; $i++) {
                $s .= substr($a, mt_rand(0, $l), 1);
        }
        return $s;
}

[BDKR]

Yeah, the manual. 🙂 Seriously. Just check out the documentation on the rand() and mt_rand(). The user comments probably have enough examples alone to help you out.

Cheers,
BDKR

[Mega]

       	function make_password()
	{
		$pass = '';
		$chars = array(
			'1','2','3','4','5','6','7','8','9','0',
			'a','A','b','B','c','C','d','D','e','E','f','F','g','G','h','H','i','I','j','J',
			'k','K','l','L','m','M','n','N','o','O','p','P','q','Q','r','R','s','S','t','T',
			'u','U','v','V','w','W','x','X','y','Y','z','Z');

	$count = count($chars) - 1;

	srand((double)microtime()*1000000);

	for($i = 0; $i < 8; $i++)
	{
		$pass .= $chars[rand(0, $count)];
	}

	return($pass);
}          

[netr]

echo "<b>generated password:</b>" . generate_pw(15);

function generate_pw ($len) {

$chars = array("a","b","c","d","e","f","g","h","i","j","k","l","m","n","o","p","q","r","s","t","u","v","w","x","y","z","0","1","2","3","4","5","6","7","8","9");
$gen_pw = "";

for ($i = 0; $i <= $len; $i++) {
	srand((double)microtime()*1000000);
	$rnd_chr = round(rand(0, count($chars)-1));
	$gen_pw .= $chars[$rnd_chr];
}
return ($gen_pw);

}

---

not much different from the others, this just lets you set the exact length of the pw's created. maybe you can set up another randomize code from 1-10 if your creating an administration script, that way your passwords will never be the same length... thats what i do =P. heres a script i wrote for formmail, you can use it for sending the email:

---

<?PHP

/************************************************/
/* PHP MailForm v1.0 By Corey Jackson */
/*  Dont Publish My Shit In Your Name :) */
/************************************************/

$SITENAME = "Your Sites Name";
$SITEURL = "http://www.domain.com";
$FORMURL = "http://www.domain.com/path";
$YOUREMAIL = "[e-mail]";
$YOURNAME = "webmaster";
$REDIRECT = "http://www.domain.com/path";

/************************************************************************/
/* dont touch these codes  */
/************************************************************************/

$IP = $REMOTE_ADDR;
$HOST = $REMOTE_HOST;
$STAMP = date("l/m/Y h:I:U a");
$QS = trim($QUERY_STRING);
$TITLE = "PHP MailForm";
$CREATOR = "Corey Jackson";
$VER = "1.0";

if(!isset($subject) || !isset($message)) {
	die (" invalid use of query strings. please go <a href=\"$FORMURL\">back</a> to the form. ");
}

$headers  = "MIME-Version: 1.0\r\n";
$headers .= "Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1\r\n";
if(isset($email)) {
	$headers .= "From: $email";
}
$headers .= "To: $YOURNAME <$YOUREMAIL>\r\n";
$headers .= "X-Mailer: PHPn";
$headers .= "X-Priority: 1\n";



if(isset($name)) {
	$message = "Name: $name\n<br>" . $message;
} elseif(isset($siteurl) && isset($sitename)) {
	$message = "Website: <a href=\"$siteurl\">$sitename</a>\n\n<br>" . $message;
}

$message .= "\n\n\n\n<br><br><br><br>Mail Sent With $TITLE v$VER by $CREATOR";

mail($YOUREMAIL, $subject, $message, $headers);

/************************************************************************/
/* thanks for using my script. [url]http://www.snoogins.net[/url] nA 2k2 */
/************************************************************************/

?>

---

edit at your own will, just give me some kind of credit. good luck!