On Thu, Feb 09, 2017 at 01:23:26PM -0500, [email protected] wrote: > Package: popularity-contest > Version: 1.64 > > generate_id() { > if which uuidgen >/dev/null 2>&1; then > MY_HOSTID=`uuidgen | tr -d -` > else > MY_HOSTID=`dd if=/dev/urandom bs=1k count=1 2>/dev/null | > md5sum | sed 's/ -//'''` > fi > } > > A few notes: > > 1) You do not need, and should not use, 1 kilobyte of entropy to generate > a 16-byte random number. You should use 128 bits of seed material, > not 8192! > 2) If you want a random uuid, then /proc/sys/kernel/random/uuid will > provide one for you, just like uuidgen. > 3) There's no need to hash the output of /dev/urandom. Simpler would be > to just use "od -x -An -N16 /dev/urandom". (od and md5sum are both > in coreutils.)
Hello Sacrificial, Thanks for your suggestion. When this code was written, uuidgen was Essential: yes and so was available on every Debian system, so the second method was never used. Which kernel version provides /proc/sys/kernel/random/uuid ? What about kfreebsd ? Cheers, -- Bill. <[email protected]> Imagine a large red swirl here.
