openwall / openwall/john

Add support for mask files

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enhancement
Dominant language
C
Stars
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Forks
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Description

I would like to reduce the search space given a password policy:

  • Must be between 5 and 8 chars in length
  • Must have at least 1 lower case character
  • Must have at least 1 digit
  • Must have at least 1 special character (non-alphanumeric)

With hashcat I would generate a set of masks using policygen in the PACK utilities then use the resulting list. Although JTR supports mask mode it doesn't seem to support a set of masks, just a single mask specified in the command line.

Is there a different approach to do this other than scripting?

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Research direction

Start by reviewing John the Ripper's existing mask mode and command-line handling, then compare them with the mask lists produced by the PACK policygen utility. Done means a password-policy mask set can be consumed without external scripting while supporting the stated length, lowercase, digit, and special-character constraints.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
c
Domain
cli, security
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
25/100

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