uuidgen - create a new UUID value
The uuidgen program creates (and prints) a new universally unique
identifier (UUID) using the libuuid(3) library. The new UUID can
reasonably be considered unique among all UUIDs created on the local system,
and among UUIDs created on other systems in the past and in the future.
There are two types of UUIDs which uuidgen can generate:
time-based UUIDs and random-based UUIDs. By default uuidgen will
generate a random-based UUID if a high-quality random number generator is
present. Otherwise, it will choose a time-based UUID. It is possible to
force the generation of one of these two UUID types by using the -r
or -t options.
- -r, --random
- Generate a random-based UUID. This method creates a UUID consisting mostly
of random bits. It requires that the operating system have a high quality
random number generator, such as /dev/random.
- -t, --time
- Generate a time-based UUID. This method creates a UUID based on the system
clock plus the system's ethernet hardware address, if present.
- -h, --help
- Display help text and exit.
- -V, --version
- Display version information and exit.
uuidgen was written by Andreas Dilger for libuuid.
The uuidgen command is part of the util-linux package and is available from
ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.