misc/uuidgen.1.in

.\" Copyright 1999 Andreas Dilger (adilger@enel.ucalgary.ca)
.\"
.\" This man page was created for libuuid.so.1.1 from e2fsprogs-1.14.
.\" 
.\" This file may be copied under the terms of the GNU Public License.
.\" 
.\" Created  Wed Mar 10 17:42:12 1999, Andreas Dilger
.TH UUIDGEN 1 "@E2FSPROGS_MONTH@ @E2FSPROGS_YEAR@" "E2fsprogs version @E2FSPROGS_VERSION@"
.SH NAME
uuidgen \- command\-line utility to create a new UUID value
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B uuidgen 
[
.B \-r
|
.B \-t
]
.SH DESCRIPTION
The
.B uuidgen
program creates (and prints) 
a new universally unique identifier (UUID) using the
.BR 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.
.PP
There are two types of UUID's which 
.B uuidgen
can generate: time-based UUID's and random-based UUID's.  By 
default 
.B uuidgen
will generate a random-based UUID if a high-quality random number
generator is present.  Otherwise, it will chose a time-based UUID.  It 
is possible to force the generation of one of these two 
UUID types by using the
.B \-r
or
.B \-t
options.
.SH OPTIONS
.TP
.B \-r
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
.IR /dev/random .
.TP
.B \-t
Generate a time-based UUID.  This method creates a UUID based on the system 
clock plus the system's ethernet hardware address, if present.
.SH "CONFORMING TO"
OSF DCE 1.1
.SH AUTHOR
.B uuidgen
was written by Andreas Dilger for libuuid.
.SH AVAILABILITY
.B uuidgen
is part of libuuid from the e2fsprogs package and is available from
http://e2fsprogs.sourceforge.net.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.BR libuuid (3)