Yeah but please don't actually use this. Use a proper UUID library that works cross-platform and lets you choose the UUID type and can be seeded etc.
this post was submitted on 24 May 2025
87 points (96.8% liked)
Linux
7409 readers
353 users here now
A community for everything relating to the GNU/Linux operating system
Also check out:
Original icon base courtesy of lewing@isc.tamu.edu and The GIMP
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
This is awesome. Thank you
I’ve used this in some bash scripts, very useful!
That’s what you get when you define a file system as “a system that names things”.
boot_id seems to be static, probably set at boot.
So don't use it for a random uuid.
Thank you so much for sharing this!
Works in Termux on Android
See also: /dev/null
It’s basically a black hole where you can throw anything.
cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/uuid | /dev/nullWould have to be cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/uuid > /dev/null
You can't pipe to a file, only to programs, and since /dev/null isn't an executable your command will simply give an error.
To make it more clear, consider using dd, which lets you explicitly specify an input and output file. For example: dd if=/proc/sys/kernel/random/uuid of=/dev/sda1 wait shit that wasn't the right output oh god oh fu
i saw this and came to do THE THING but you beat me too it. GOOD ANYA
That reminds me of the CPU stress test I ran many years ago.
dd if=/dev/random of=/dev/null
If you have 8 cores, just open 8 terminals, and run that code in each of them.
for i in {1..n} # where n == number of cores
do
dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/null &
done
# to stop:
jobs -p | xargs kill
/dev/urandom should stress the CPU more. /dev/random can be entropy limited
The information will be evenly distributed upon its surface and some believe one day it will be be radiated back out into the rest of the system.
That's a horrifying concept. Better not think about it.
no.