CeWL
CeWL spiders a website and builds a custom wordlist from the words it finds, useful for targeted password audits.
Legal & ethical use. Use this tool only on systems, networks and data that you own or have explicit written permission to test. Unauthorised access or scanning can break computer-misuse laws (for example Pakistan's Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, 2016, and equivalents elsewhere). Practise in your own lab or in authorised environments such as CTFs.
What it is used for
- Create a wordlist tailored to an organisation in an authorised audit
- Learn why predictable company words make weak passwords
Key features
- Crawl depth control
- Minimum word length
- Optional email extraction
Installation
Install from your distribution or clone the repository (Ruby).
Beginner usage guide
Crawl a site you own to a shallow depth and combine the output with rules in John or Hashcat in a lab.
Example commands
Run these only against your own lab or authorised targets. Placeholder addresses such as 192.0.2.x are documentation ranges.
Build a wordlist from a lab site
cewl -d 2 -m 6 http://127.0.0.1:8081 -w words.txt-d is crawl depth, -m the minimum word length and -w the output file.
References
Source verification
Last reviewed: 2026-10-27
Links checked over HTTP: 2026-10-27 07:51 UTC — official: 200, docs: 200, repo: 200
Command flags checked against the real binary cewl (CeWL 6.2.1 (More Fixes) Robin Wood (robin@digi.ninja) (https...) on 2026-10-27.