xref: /dragonfly/lib/libc/sys/uuidgen.2 (revision f746689a)
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/uuid.h
38.Ft int
39.Fn uuidgen "struct uuid *store" "int count"
40.Sh DESCRIPTION
41The
42.Fn uuidgen
43system call generates
44.Fa count
45universally unique identifiers (UUIDs) and writes them to the buffer
46pointed to by
47.Fa store .
48The identifiers are generated according to the syntax and semantics of the
49DCE version 1 variant of universally unique identifiers.
50See below for a more in-depth description of the identifiers.
51When no IEEE 802
52address is available for the node field, a random multicast address is
53generated for each invocation of the system call.
54According to the algorithm of generating time-based UUIDs, this will also
55force a new random clock sequence, thereby increasing the likelihood for
56the identifier to be unique.
57.Pp
58When multiple identifiers are to be generated, the
59.Fn uuidgen
60system call will generate a set of identifiers that is dense in such a way
61that there is no identifier that is larger than the smallest identifier in the
62set and smaller than the largest identifier in the set and that is not already
63in the set.
64.Pp
65Universally unique identifiers, also known as globally unique identifiers
66(GUIDs), have a binary representation of 128-bits.
67The grouping and meaning of these bits is described by the following
68structure and its description of the fields that follow it:
69.Bd -literal
70struct uuid {
71	uint32_t	time_low;
72	uint16_t	time_mid;
73	uint16_t	time_hi_and_version;
74	uint8_t		clock_seq_hi_and_reserved;
75	uint8_t		clock_seq_low;
76	uint8_t		node[_UUID_NODE_LEN];
77};
78.Ed
79.Bl -tag -width ".Va clock_seq_hi_and_reserved"
80.It Va time_low
81The least significant 32 bits of a 60-bit timestamp.
82This field is stored in the native byte-order.
83.It Va time_mid
84The least significant 16 bits of the most significant 28 bits of the 60-bit
85timestamp.
86This field is stored in the native byte-order.
87.It Va time_hi_and_version
88The most significant 12 bits of the 60-bit timestamp multiplexed with a 4-bit
89version number.
90The version number is stored in the most significant 4 bits of the 16-bit
91field.
92This field is stored in the native byte-order.
93.It Va clock_seq_hi_and_reserved
94The most significant 6 bits of a 14-bit sequence number multiplexed with a
952-bit variant value.
96Note that the width of the variant value is determined by the variant itself.
97Identifiers generated by the
98.Fn uuidgen
99system call have variant value 10b.
100the variant value is stored in the most significant bits of the field.
101.It Va clock_seq_low
102The least significant 8 bits of a 14-bit sequence number.
103.It Va node
104The 6-byte IEEE 802 (MAC) address of one of the interfaces of the node.
105If no such interface exists, a random multi-cast address is used instead.
106.El
107.Pp
108The binary representation is sensitive to byte ordering.
109Any multi-byte field is to be stored in the local or native byte-order and
110identifiers must be converted when transmitted to hosts that do not agree
111on the byte-order.
112The specification does not however document what this means in concrete
113terms and is otherwise beyond the scope of this system call.
114.Sh RETURN VALUES
115.Rv -std
116.Sh ERRORS
117The
118.Fn uuidgen
119system call can fail with:
120.Bl -tag -width Er
121.It Bq Er EFAULT
122The buffer pointed to by
123.Fa store
124could not be written to for any or all identifiers.
125.It Bq Er EINVAL
126The
127.Fa count
128argument is less than 1 or larger than the hard upper limit of 2048.
129.El
130.Sh SEE ALSO
131.Xr uuidgen 1 ,
132.Xr uuid 3
133.Sh STANDARDS
134The identifiers are represented and generated in conformance with the DCE 1.1
135RPC specification.
136The
137.Fn uuidgen
138system call is itself not part of the specification.
139.Sh HISTORY
140The
141.Fn uuidgen
142system call first appeared in
143.Fx 5.0 .
144