PWHASH(1) | General Commands Manual | PWHASH(1)

# NAME

pwhash — hashes passwords from the command line or standard input

# SYNOPSIS

pwhash | [-km] [-b rounds] [-S rounds] [-s salt] [-p | string]

# DESCRIPTION

pwhash prints the encrypted form of string to the standard output. This is mostly useful for encrypting passwords from within scripts.

The options are as follows:

-b rounds
  Encrypt the string using Blowfish hashing with the specified rounds.
-k
  Run in makekey(8) compatible mode. A single combined key (eight chars) and salt (two chars) with no intermediate space are read from standard input and the DES encrypted result is written to standard output without a terminating newline.
-m
  Encrypt the string using MD5.
-p
  Prompt for a single string with echo turned off.
-S rounds
  Encrypt the salt with HMAC-SHA1 using the password as key and the specified rounds as a hint for the number of iterations.
-s salt
  Encrypt the string using DES, with the specified salt.

If no string is specified, pwhash reads one string per line from standard input, encrypting each one with the chosen algorithm from above. In the event that no specific algorithm is given as a command line option, the algorithm specified in the default class in /etc/passwd.conf will be used.

For MD5 and Blowfish a new random salt is automatically generated for each password.

Specifying the string on the command line should be discouraged; using the standard input is more secure.

# FILES

/etc/passwd.conf

# SEE ALSO

crypt(3), passwd.conf(5)

October 16, 2009 | NetBSD 6.0