john-users - [question] How to crack a specific ssh key pass

Openwall GNU/*/Linux 3.0 - a small security-enhanced Linux distro for servers

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Date: Thu, 07 Mar 2013 10:44:36 +0100
From: Thomas Fétiveau <thomas.fetiveau.tech@...il.com>
To: john-users@...ts.openwall.com
Subject: [question] How to crack a specific ssh key pass

Hi !

I've just discovered john and I am trying to retreive a pass for one of 
my ssh private key.

I've tried the incremental modes but there are limited to 1 to 8 length 
passwords.

The password I'm searching for has between 10 and 16 chars and is 
composed only of these characters: [a-z][0-1-3-5-6] (actually, even 
less, I'm sure there is no 'w', 'x', 'y' nor 'z' letters).

I've read that searching in incremental modes for more than 8 characters 
doesn't make sense because it would take too long.

But is it still true with the range of characters I have ? ie: about 28 
different chars

If it would still make sense, what should I do to make john searching 
for this password ? (I'm running it under windows)

On a side note: I'm running under a multi-core multi-threaded win 7 64 
bit and the john-opm.exe doesn't use more thread nor core nor CPU usage 
than john.exe (the both use just about 12,5% of my overall CPU capacity).

Thanks in advance
Tom