How to Choose a Good Password I know that coming up with a good password can be difficult, so here are some guidelines to use. Choose a password that is at least six characters long. This should be long enough to discourage a brute-force attack. Currently, the maximum password length on many Unix systems is eight characters, but if you want to add a few more characters to make it easier to remember, go ahead. Unfortunately, passwords like this are often hard to remember and result in people writing them down.
Some people like to pick several small words, separated by punctuation marks of some kind.
Use some unusual way of contracting a word. You don't have to use an apostrophe. You can use control characters. Just bear in mind that a lot of them have special meanings. Think of an uncommon phrase, and take the first, second or last letter of each word.