Subject: Re: kern/23470 -- UUID support from FreeBSD
To: Ty Sarna <tsarna@sarna.org>
From: Giles Lean <giles@nemeton.com.au>
List: tech-kern
Date: 01/24/2004 09:15:37
Ty Sarna wrote:

> Anyone object to:
> 
> 1) adding uuidgen(2)/uuidgen(1) a'la FreeBSD

[ As an aside, FreeBSD has uuid(3) in libc, and Linux has libuuid().
  I just love *nix compatibility.  Bring back the Unix wars! :-(
]

I'd like to see uuidgen(1): both FreeBSD and Linux have it.
Unfortunately, they have different options.  The Linux manual
page says that their implementation conforms to OSF DCE 1.1,
but I don't know if they mean the command or just the output
format.

Linux:
    uuidgen [ -r | -t ]

where -r gives a 'random' UUID, -t gives a 'time-based' UUID, and
the default depends on the presence or absence of a 'high-quality'
random number generator.

FreeBSD:
    uuidgen [-1] [-n count] [-o filename]

where -1 says to generate identifiers one at a time, -n says how
many identifiers to create, and -o redirects output to a file.

Were you planning to implement any of these options?  (I'm mostly just
curious: in my own use, I've only ever run uuidgen(1) without
options.)

> 2) specifically, using the freebsd-derived code in kern/23470, perhaps
> with improvements?

FYI I tried unpacking the uuencoded file (seemed OK) but gzip
complained.

Giles