py2fa-cli 1.0.0.post2

Command-line application for calculating one-time passwords for 2FA.

py2fa-cli

Calculates and displays time-based one-time passwords (TOTP) for two-factor authentication:

$ py2fa pypi.org
One-time password: 123456 (valid for 13.7 seconds)

Installation

For typical use:

python3 -m pip install py2fa-cli

For development:

git clone https://github.com/arcctgx/py2fa-cli
cd py2fa-cli
python3 -m pip install --editable .

Dependencies

• pyotp
• pyxdg

These dependencies will be installed automatically when py2fa-cli is installed by pip.

Configuration

TOTP secrets are stored in user's XDG configuration directory. Unless you changed your XDG_CONFIG_HOME, that will be .config/py2fa/secrets.json in your $HOME. The secrets file must not be world-accessible (readable, writable or executable): in such case py2fa will refuse to load it.

The secrets file is a dictionary represented in JSON format, e.g.:

{
    "pypi.org": "MYPYPITOTPSECRET",
    "test.pypi.org": "MYTESTPYPITOTPSECRET"
}

The dictionary key is what you provide in the command-line, so just use any name that's convenient. The value is the shared TOTP secret in base32 format.

A note for Microsoft Authenticator users

It is not possible to extract the shared secret from the Microsoft Authenticator application once it's been configured. You can only obtain the shared secret when you first set up the authenticator app.

When presented with a QR code, do not scan it with Microsoft Authenticator. Instead use some generic QR scanner app. You should get an URI similar to this one:

otpauth://totp/YourOrg%3Ayour.email%40your.org?secret=TWOJDZIENTWOJAWODA&issuer=Microsoft

Extract the secret from the URI and put it in your secrets.json file. If you want to, you can scan the QR code with Microsoft Authenticator now. py2fa and the authenticator app will generate the same TOTP codes.