passt is a CLI tool and library for generating random strings to be used as password.
The goal with this small project was to build a usable and useful CLI tool and library using Rust. It was my first time having the code for a CLI and library in one project.
The goal with this was to have as little dependencies as possible. I managed to only use functions from the std library, though there’s a hard dependency on /dev/urandom (Unix) or file:/dev/urandom (Windows) for random number generation.
In the process of building the tool I learned how to use configs to run code depending on the OS it is executed on, as shown in the following example.
#[cfg(target_os = "windows")]
let mut f = File::open("file:/dev/urandom").unwrap();
#[cfg(not(target_os = "windows"))]
let mut f = File::open("/dev/urandom").unwrap();
let mut buf = [0u8; 32];
f.read_exact(&mut buf).unwrap();Library
To use passt in your project, add it to the dependencies in Cargo.toml like so
[dependencies]
passt = "0.3.0"Then add it to your code
use passt::Passt;
// create random password with 16 characters, do not include special characters
fn my_random_string() -> String {
Passt::random_password(16, Some(false));
}CLI
The CLI can be installed with cargo. Run cargo install passt, then run passt -h to see all options:
$ passt -h
USAGE: passt -l <int> [-s] [-chars "<str>"] [-n <int>]
-l length of the generated password
-n number of passwords to create (default: 1)
-s use special characters
-chars possible characters as a string, e.g. "abc012"