= Sifar

Sifar can be used to check for strong passwords. Apart from the standard tests for length and homogeneity, it can check passwords that sound and spell similar to a given word.

Sifar can also generate passwords that satisfy the given criteria.

== Upgrade Notes

Version 0.2.0 is a complete rewrite. Please check usage before upgrading.

== Installation

=== Requirements

You need the text gem. This is installed automatically if Sifar is installed as a gem. More information on text can be found at https://github.com/threedaymonk/text.

Sifar has been tested only on *nix systems.

=== As a gem

Install the gem:

sudo gem install sifar

To use the Sifar gem with bundler, add the following line in your Gemfile:

gem 'sifar'

=== As a Rails plugin

To add Sifar as a plugin in a Rails application, run the following command from your application root:

./script/plugin install [email protected]:meshbrain/sifar.git

== Usage === Validate

require 'sifar' checker = Sifar.new ... p checker.errors unless checker.check(word)

=== Generate

require 'sifar' checker = Sifar.new ... password = checker.generate

=== Checks

Checks can be used separately or in combination.

==== Minimum length

Password should be at least x characters long.

checker = Sifar.new :minimum_length => 8 checker.check('pword') # => false checker.check('password') # => true checker.check('longpassword') # => true

==== Heterogeneous passwords

Password should contain a mix of digits, uppercase and lowercase characters.

checker = Sifar.new :heterogeneous => true checker.check('password') # => false checker.check('Pa55w0rD') # => true

==== Dictionary passwords

Password should not contain any word from a given file.

checker = Sifar.new :dictionary => '/path/to/dictionary' checker.check('indictionary') # => false

==== Reject specific characters

Password should not contain any character from a given set.

checker = Sifar.new :character_blacklist => %w(& % $) checker.check('pass%word') # => false

==== Passwords that spell similar to a given name

Levenshtein distance of two words should be more than a given threshold. :name is mandatory.

checker = Sifar.new :similarity => 1, :name => 'shoeman' checker.check('showman') # => false checker.check('anothershowman') # => false checker.check('password') # => true

==== Words that sound similar to a given name

Phonetic similarity of two words should be more than a given threshold. :name is mandatory.

checker = Sifar.new :phonetic_similarity => 1, :name => 'suman' checker.check('showman') # => false checker.check('password') # => true

NOTE: This check uses metaphone; and might not work as expected in all languages.

== Copyright

Copyright (c) 2011 Suman Debnath. See LICENSE for details.