We need to distinguish between the minimum and maximum password length supported by the algorithm and OpenCL kernels ... and the settings the user sets (with --increment-max for instance).
What you quoting is the supported length by the algorithm and OpenCL kernel (this normally changes when the user uses -O, but for -m 2500 and other algorithms it is behaving different again, mainly because they are slow hashes and there is almost no difference between full-length kernels and limited-length kernels etc).
You could troubleshoot your "problem" (which basically is just a misunderstanding) by playing around with --stdout:
You will notice that the length of the words in the output are only 2 and 3 digits long (even if the max is longer)... the same happens with longer masks (but of course they would take longer to generate).
What you quoting is the supported length by the algorithm and OpenCL kernel (this normally changes when the user uses -O, but for -m 2500 and other algorithms it is behaving different again, mainly because they are slow hashes and there is almost no difference between full-length kernels and limited-length kernels etc).
You could troubleshoot your "problem" (which basically is just a misunderstanding) by playing around with --stdout:
Code:
hashcat --stdout -a 3 --increment --increment-min 2 --increment-max 3 ?d?d?d?dYou will notice that the length of the words in the output are only 2 and 3 digits long (even if the max is longer)... the same happens with longer masks (but of course they would take longer to generate).