xref: /dragonfly/lib/libc/sys/uuidgen.2 (revision 73e0051e)
1.\" Copyright (c) 2002 Marcel Moolenaar
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25.\" $FreeBSD: src/lib/libc/sys/uuidgen.2,v 1.8 2005/07/31 03:30:44 keramida Exp $
26.\" $DragonFly: src/lib/libc/sys/uuidgen.2,v 1.1 2007/06/16 19:57:13 dillon Exp $
27.\"
28.Dd May 26, 2002
29.Dt UUIDGEN 2
30.Os
31.Sh NAME
32.Nm uuidgen
33.Nd generate universally unique identifiers
34.Sh LIBRARY
35.Lb libc
36.Sh SYNOPSIS
37.In sys/types.h
38.In sys/uuid.h
39.Ft int
40.Fn uuidgen "struct uuid *store" "int count"
41.Sh DESCRIPTION
42The
43.Fn uuidgen
44system call generates
45.Fa count
46universally unique identifiers (UUIDs) and writes them to the buffer
47pointed to by
48.Fa store .
49The identifiers are generated according to the syntax and semantics of the
50DCE version 1 variant of universally unique identifiers.
51See below for a more in-depth description of the identifiers.
52When no IEEE 802
53address is available for the node field, a random multicast address is
54generated for each invocation of the system call.
55According to the algorithm of generating time-based UUIDs, this will also
56force a new random clock sequence, thereby increasing the likelihood for
57the identifier to be unique.
58.Pp
59When multiple identifiers are to be generated, the
60.Fn uuidgen
61system call will generate a set of identifiers that is dense in such a way
62that there is no identifier that is larger than the smallest identifier in the
63set and smaller than the largest identifier in the set and that is not already
64in the set.
65.Pp
66Universally unique identifiers, also known as globally unique identifiers
67(GUIDs), have a binary representation of 128-bits.
68The grouping and meaning of these bits is described by the following
69structure and its description of the fields that follow it:
70.Bd -literal
71struct uuid {
72	uint32_t	time_low;
73	uint16_t	time_mid;
74	uint16_t	time_hi_and_version;
75	uint8_t		clock_seq_hi_and_reserved;
76	uint8_t		clock_seq_low;
77	uint8_t		node[_UUID_NODE_LEN];
78};
79.Ed
80.Bl -tag -width ".Va clock_seq_hi_and_reserved"
81.It Va time_low
82The least significant 32 bits of a 60-bit timestamp.
83This field is stored in the native byte-order.
84.It Va time_mid
85The least significant 16 bits of the most significant 28 bits of the 60-bit
86timestamp.
87This field is stored in the native byte-order.
88.It Va time_hi_and_version
89The most significant 12 bits of the 60-bit timestamp multiplexed with a 4-bit
90version number.
91The version number is stored in the most significant 4 bits of the 16-bit
92field.
93This field is stored in the native byte-order.
94.It Va clock_seq_hi_and_reserved
95The most significant 6 bits of a 14-bit sequence number multiplexed with a
962-bit variant value.
97Note that the width of the variant value is determined by the variant itself.
98Identifiers generated by the
99.Fn uuidgen
100system call have variant value 10b.
101the variant value is stored in the most significant bits of the field.
102.It Va clock_seq_low
103The least significant 8 bits of a 14-bit sequence number.
104.It Va node
105The 6-byte IEEE 802 (MAC) address of one of the interfaces of the node.
106If no such interface exists, a random multi-cast address is used instead.
107.El
108.Pp
109The binary representation is sensitive to byte ordering.
110Any multi-byte field is to be stored in the local or native byte-order and
111identifiers must be converted when transmitted to hosts that do not agree
112on the byte-order.
113The specification does not however document what this means in concrete
114terms and is otherwise beyond the scope of this system call.
115.Sh RETURN VALUES
116.Rv -std
117.Sh ERRORS
118The
119.Fn uuidgen
120system call can fail with:
121.Bl -tag -width Er
122.It Bq Er EFAULT
123The buffer pointed to by
124.Fa store
125could not be written to for any or all identifiers.
126.It Bq Er EINVAL
127The
128.Fa count
129argument is less than 1 or larger than the hard upper limit of 2048.
130.El
131.Sh SEE ALSO
132.Xr uuidgen 1 ,
133.Xr uuid 3
134.Sh STANDARDS
135The identifiers are represented and generated in conformance with the DCE 1.1
136RPC specification.
137The
138.Fn uuidgen
139system call is itself not part of the specification.
140.Sh HISTORY
141The
142.Fn uuidgen
143system call first appeared in
144.Fx 5.0 .
145