openwall / openwall/john

Support for multiple dictionaries

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#3,262 5 comments 1 reaction 0 assignees View on GitHub

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enhancement
Dominant language
C
Stars
13.6k
Forks
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PR merge metrics
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Description

Please allow for multiple --wordlist options on CLI.
This will be useful for users having multiple dictionaries, without the need to combine them in one. Also allows for single kernel initialization in one execution cycle over multiple dictionaries.
Currently this can be achieved through pipes, either with --stdin (no rules) or --pipe (memory allocation errors in some builds). Inbuilt support will yield max performance in this situations.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by tracing the CLI handling of repeated --wordlist options and the execution path that currently processes one dictionary. Compare it with the --stdin and --pipe paths mentioned in the issue. Done means multiple dictionaries work in one invocation without requiring pipes and retain single kernel initialization.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
c
Domain
cli
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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