what is the best way to generate a reset token in python?

Question

I\'m trying to make a validation process for a password reset, what i\'ve used are two values: the epoch time, and i want to use the users\'s old password (pbkdf2) as a key,

Answer 1

Not sure it's the best way, but I'd probably just generate a UUID4, which can be used in a URL to reset the password and expire it after 'n' amount of time.

>>> import uuid
>>> uuid.uuid4().hex
'8c05904f0051419283d1024fc5ce1a59'

You could use something like http://redis.io to hold that key, with a value of the appropriate user ID and set its time to live. So, when something comes in from http://example.com/password-reset/8c05904f0051419283d1024fc5ce1a59 it looks to see if it's valid and if so then allows changes to set a new password.

If you did want a "validation pin", then store along with the token, a small random key, eg:

>>> from string import digits
>>> from random import choice
>>> ''.join(choice(digits) for i in xrange(4))
'2545'

And request that be entered on the reset link.