CeWL

Spider a site to build a custom wordlist.

KaliParrotlow

pkg: cewl

CeWL crawls a target website and extracts words to build a context-specific wordlist for password attacks.

Syntax

cewl {url} [-d depth] -w {out}

Example

cewl https://example.com -d 2 -w words.txt

Spiders the site to depth 2 and writes unique words to words.txt.

Options & flags

What each switch does. Toggle them in the builder below to assemble a command.

-d <2>Crawl depth.
-m <5>Minimum word length.
-w <words.txt>Write the wordlist to a file.
-eAlso extract email addresses.
--with-numbersInclude words with numbers.

Command builder

Tick options (and fill any values) to build a ready-to-copy command.

cewl

Usage examples

cewl https://target.tld -d 2 -m 6 -w words.txt

Build a site-specific wordlist.

cewl -e https://t

Harvest emails while crawling.

Advantages
  • Context-aware, high-hit wordlists
  • Tunable depth/min-length
  • Can extract emails/metadata
Disadvantages
  • Crawling is active
  • Quality depends on site content
  • Respect robots/scope
Tags
#wordlist#osint

Official docs: CeWL

Related commands

Frequently asked questions

What is CeWL used for?
CeWL crawls a target website and extracts words to build a context-specific wordlist for password attacks.
What is an example CeWL command?
A common example is: cewl https://example.com -d 2 -w words.txt — Spiders the site to depth 2 and writes unique words to words.txt.
Is CeWL part of Kali Linux?
Yes. CeWL ships with Kali Linux (and Parrot OS). If missing, install it with: sudo apt install cewl.
What category of security tool is CeWL?
CeWL is a Password Attacks tool with a low-risk profile when run against a live target.

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