That’s all. I just found this in a random script. Generates a random UUID every time it’s called. I didn’t know.
Of course I can also use uuidgen or pipe /dev/(u)random into something to get a random alphanumeric string - but this is built right into the kernel!
In /proc/sys/kernel/random/, there’s also boot_id which seems to do the same is static, and some tweakable parameters.
❤️🐧
dd is just cp but more confusing here.
The only thing dd can do that cp can’t is stop ahead of time, which only really matters for infinite files like
/dev/randomcp /proc/sys/kernel/random/uuid /dev/sda