Ubuntu Manpage: diceware - create passphrases

NAME

       diceware - create passphrases

SYNOPSIS

       diceware [OPTION]... [FILE]

DESCRIPTION

       diceware  generates  passphrases  by concatenating words randomly picked from wordlists. It supports also
       real dice for passphrase generation.

       It is based on the proposals of Arnold G. Reinhold on  <http://diceware.com> .

OPTIONS

       positional arguments:

          FILE   optional input wordlist. '-' will read from stdin. Should contain one word per line.

       optional arguments:

          -h, --help
                 show help message and exit

          -n NUM, --num NUM
                 number of words to concatenate. Default 6

          -c, --caps
                 Capitalize words. This is the default.

          --no-caps
                 Turn off capitalization.

          -s NUM, --specials NUM
                 Insert NUM special chars into generated word.

          -d DELIMITER, --delimiter DELIMITER
                 Separate words by DELIMITER. Empty string by default.

          -r SOURCE, --randomsource SOURCE
                 Get randomness from this source. Possible values: realdice, system. Default: system

          -w [NAME [NAME ...]], --wordlist [NAME [NAME ...]]
                 Use words from this wordlist. Possible values: ca, de, de_8k, en, en_8k, en_adjectives, en_eff,
                 en_nouns, en_orig, en_securedrop.  es, it, pt-br. Default: en_eff

          -v, --verbose
                 Be verbose. Use several times for increased verbosity.

          --version
                 output version information and exit.

       Arguments related to realdice randomsource:

          --dice-sides N
                 Number of sides of dice. Default: 6

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

       XDG_CONFIG_HOME
              If set and not empty, this variable determines the directory to use for  user-local  configuration
              files.  We  then  lookup  ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/diceware/diceware.ini  and  values  set here override
              system-wide config files.

       XDG_CONFIG_DIRS
              If set and not empty, this variable is interpreted as colon-separated list  of  directories,  that
              might  contain  system-wide  configuration  files.  We lookup <DIR>/diceware/diceware.ini for each
              directory set in $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS.

       XDG_DATA_HOME
                 If set and not empty, this variable determines a directory to search for additional  wordlists.
                 We then lookup ${XDG_DATA_HOME}/diceware for any existing wordlist files.

              XDG_DATA_DIRS
                     If  set and not empty, this variable is interpreted as colon-separated list of directories,
                     that might contain additional wordlist files. See below. We lookup <DIR>/diceware/ then for
                     each directory set in the list.

FILES

Depending on environment variables set (or not set) we lookup certain directories for configuration files
called diceware.ini and for wordlist files.

CONFIGURATION FILES
Configuration settings for diceware can be spread over several configuration files. We parse
configuration values from the files given below, but values set in former files take precedence over
values set in latter ones.

~/.diceware.ini
Your personal diceware configuration file. Values set here override values from any other
configuration file.

$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/diceware/diceware.ini
Additional location for your personal diceware configuration. Values set here will override any
system-wide valid values but can be overridden by ~/.diceware.ini.

$HOME/.config/diceware/diceware.ini
Alternative location for diceware configuration, only used if ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME} is empty or
unset.

/etc/xdg/diceware/diceware.ini
If $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS is not set or empty, we look here for a system-wide configuration file. Values
set here take least precedence.

WORDLIST FILES AND WORDLIST DIRECTORIES:
diceware comes with a set of wordlists but enables you to add new wordlists by putting them into certain
directories. The paths where the lists are stored (including the built-in ones) is shown using
--show-wordlist-dirs.

Wordlist files are expected to contain lines with one term on each line and they must have a certain
filenames to be found.

Wordlist filenames have to follow the pattern: wordlist_<NAME>.txt where <NAME> can be any name
consisting of letters, numbers, underscores and hyphens. For instance wordlist_en_eff.txt is the filename
of the EFF (electronic frontier foundation) word list. en_eff is the name of this list.

We support .txt and .asc as filename extensions for wordlists, where .txt files are expected to be plain
wordlists and .asc files should provide a PGP-signature.

If wordlists with the same name are found in different directories then the one in the directory with the
highest precedence is taken only. The following locations are ordered by precedence (highest first).
Therefore built-in wordlists cannot be overridden by custom wordlists. You can, however, use custom
wordlists with a different name.

Directories we look up that do not exist (in part or completely) are silently skipped when searching for
wordlist files.

<INSTALL-DIR>/wordlists/
The directory containing the built-in wordlists as part of the installation. These are the
wordlists that are always available, regardless of configuration values and their exact location
depends on the installation location of the diceware package.

$XDG_DATA_HOME/diceware/
If $XDG_DATA_HOME is set and not empty, we look in this directory for wordlists.

$HOME/.local/share/diceware/
If $XDG_DATA_HOME is unset or empty, we look into this directory for wordlists.

<DIR>/diceware from $XDG_DATA_DIRS
If $XDG_DATA_DIR is set and not empty, it is interpreted as a colon-separated list of directories
with /diceware appended. So, /foo/bar:/baz will make us look into /foo/bar/diceware/ and
/baz/diceware/ in that order.

/usr/local/share/diceware/, /usr/share/diceware
If $XDG_DATA_DIRS is unset or empty, we look into these two directories for wordlists.

EXAMPLES

diceware
Create a passphrase using defaults. Outputs something like "WheelDyeHonkCanvasWitsPuck"

diceware -d "-" -n 3
Create a passphrase with three words, separated by dash ("-"). Results in something like
"Wheel-Dye-Honk"

diceware --no-caps
Create a passphrase without capital words. Creates something like "wheel-dye-honk".

diceware -r realdice
Use real dice to create a passphrase. The program will tell you what to do (roll dice and tell
what numbers appear) and in the end present a passphrase.

diceware -r realdice --dice-sides 20
Use real dice, as shown above, but this time use dice with 20 faces, instead of standard, 6-sided
dice.

diceware mywordlist.txt
Create a passphrase with words from file "mywordlist.txt". The file should contain one word on
each line.

diceware -w en_securedrop -s 2
Create a passphrase with two special chars spread over the generated passphrase and containing
words from wordlist "en_securedrop". This is one of the wordlists that come included with
diceware. Creates something like: "PlayaBrigVer{SeesNe-tsGets".

diceware -w en_adjectives en_nouns -n 2
Create two syntactically meaningful phrases, each one consisting of an adjective and a noun.
Results in something like: "CruelAttendeesCleanCoffee".

COPYRIGHT

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU
General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even
the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public
License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see <
<http://www.gnu.org/licenses/> >.

diceware is a concept invented by Arnold G. Reinhold, Cambridge, Massachusetts USA.

The Securedrop wordlist (file wordlists/wordlist_en_securedrop.asc) by Heartsucker is licensed under the
MIT license (see <http://mit-license.org/> ).

The EFF wordlist (file wordlsts/wordlist_en_eff.txt) is licensed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation
under the Creative Commons CC-BY 3.0 US license (see <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/>
).

The copyright for the the Diceware SecureDrop list is owned by @heartsucker. Copyright for the EFF large
list by Joseph Bonneau and EFF. Copyright for the brazilian portuguese list by @drebs. Copyright for the
english adjective and noun lists by NaturalLanguagePasswords.

"Diceware" is a trademark of Arnold G Reinhold, used with permission.

AUTHOR

       Written by Uli Fouquet and contributors

diceware 1.0.1                                    December 2024                                      DICEWARE(1)