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2.2 seed-options options

Options for adding and removing seeds in the configuration file.. The --text option or the --tag option (when by itself) tell the program to manage password "seeds" in its database (configuration file). Both options together add a new seed, and --tag, by itself on the command line, removes a seed.

seed option.

This is the “define a seed for a series of passwords” option. This option takes a hierarchy argument ‘SEED’. This option is not a command line option. It is also the only option that is directly processed from the config file.

The seed value consists of three named parts (sub-options):

tag

These are displayed next to each displayed password to help identify them.

text

This is not displayed, but is used for the SHA initial value. This may be arbitrarily long.

ver

The version of gnu-pw-mgr used to initially store the seed. This is used to determine the password tweaking algorithm to use when the generated password does not meet the site criteria (see section the password character class option). On rare occasions, new character class restrictions may cause a change in the algorithm used to tweak passwords. When this is done, the old algorithm is still used to tweak passwords from the older seeds.

It is expected that when you must create a new password for an existing site, you will add a seed to your config file. Specify only the --tag and --text command line options and the program will insert the new triplet into the configuration file. Specify only the tag and no other command line arguments, and the associated seed entry will be removed. After that, every password id will have a new "most recent" password associated with it. You are expected to gradually update all of your passwords and retire seed values no longer in use.

New sites will not need a new seed. Simply supplying the new <pw-id> command argument will yield a new password.

tag option (-t).

This is the “seed tag” option. This option takes a string argument ‘TAG’.

This option has some usage constraints. It:

The tag for a seed to be added to or removed from the config file. The use depends on whether or not there is a --text option.

text option (-s).

This is the “seed text” option. This option takes a string argument ‘TEXT’.

This option has some usage constraints. It:

The text for a password seed to be added to the config file. This text cannot include the 7 character sequence "</text>".

This text must be at least 64 characters long. The expectation is you will write a sentence or two that you can easily remember, including any capitalization, punctuation and spacing. You should include some non-alphabetic, non-digit characters here and there to make a dictionary attack more difficult. But if you need to reconstruct this, you need to remember them.

If the text is shorter than 64 characters, it will be padded out. In such a case, you will need to save the configuration file some place secure or it will be extremely difficult to reconstruct it, should that become necessary.


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This document was generated by Bruce Korb on October 7, 2015 using texi2html 1.82.