---
title: "Readable random passwords with jot"
description: "A BSD utility to generate strong passwords suitable for handwriting."
published: 2021-10-12
---

My handwriting is hardly readable.
Without the context of words, several pairs of characters are almost indistguishable, e.g., *O* and *0*, *u* and *n*, or *1* and *l*.
Yet, I sometimes need to come up with and write down strong passwords to be deciphered by my future self, or some unlucky other person.
That's why I created a small script to generate random passwords specifically intended for handwriting.

I called the script `jotpass` because it wraps the `jot(1)` utility shipped with [OpenBSD](https://man.openbsd.org/OpenBSD-6.9/jot), [NetBSD](https://man.netbsd.org/NetBSD-9.2/jot.1), [FreeBSD](https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=jot&apropos=0&sektion=0&manpath=FreeBSD+13.0-RELEASE&arch=default&format=html), and others.
By default, it prints a random sequence of 12 dash-separated groups of four unambiguous ASCII letters and digits each.
However, you can change the alphabet, the number and width of groups, and the separator as described in the [man page](/files/jotpass.1-0.1.0.html).
For example:

    $ jotpass
    P6ji-4pRZ-Ze7m-q7Bp-Vpye-HCjr-hygF-6TwQ-oRJT-yx6p-SyMB-AwUm

    $ jotpass -a 0123456789abcdef -g 8 -w 2 -s ' ' -v
    49 1b 6e b0 e2 fc 16 b1
    The generated password has an entropy of 64 bits.

You can download a standard release tarball [here](/files/jotpass-0.1.0.tar.gz).
The script targets OpenBSD, but it should work on other BSD variants alike.
Feel free to drop me a mail if you have any feedback.