DBUS-UUIDGEN(1)                                            User Commands                                            DBUS-UUIDGEN(1)

NAME
       dbus-uuidgen - Utility to generate UUIDs

SYNOPSIS
       dbus-uuidgen [--version] [--ensure [=FILENAME]] [--get [=FILENAME]]

DESCRIPTION
       The dbus-uuidgen command generates or reads a universally unique ID.

       Note that the D-Bus UUID has no relationship to RFC 4122 and does not generate UUIDs compatible with that spec. Many systems
       have a separate command for that (often called "uuidgen").

       See http://www.freedesktop.org/software/dbus/ for more information about D-Bus.

       The primary usage of dbus-uuidgen is to run in the post-install script of a D-Bus package like this:

             dbus-uuidgen --ensure

       This will ensure that /var/lib/dbus/machine-id exists and has the uuid in it. It won't overwrite an existing uuid, since
       this id should remain fixed for a single machine until the next reboot at least.

       The important properties of the machine UUID are that 1) it remains unchanged until the next reboot and 2) it is different
       for any two running instances of the OS kernel. That is, if two processes see the same UUID, they should also see the same
       shared memory, UNIX domain sockets, local X displays, localhost.localdomain resolution, process IDs, and so forth.

       If you run dbus-uuidgen with no options it just prints a new uuid made up out of thin air.

       If you run it with --get, it prints the machine UUID by default, or the UUID in the specified file if you specify a file.

       If you try to change an existing machine-id on a running system, it will probably result in bad things happening. Don't try
       to change this file. Also, don't make it the same on two different systems; it needs to be different anytime there are two
       different kernels running.

       The UUID should be different on two different virtual machines, because there are two different kernels.

OPTIONS
       The following options are supported:

       --get[=FILENAME]
           If a filename is not given, defaults to localstatedir/lib/dbus/machine-id (localstatedir is usually /var). If this file
           exists and is valid, the uuid in the file is printed on stdout. Otherwise, the command exits with a nonzero status.

       --ensure[=FILENAME]
           If a filename is not given, defaults to localstatedir/lib/dbus/machine-id (localstatedir is usually /var). If this file
           exists then it will be validated, and a failure code returned if it contains the wrong thing. If the file does not
           exist, it will be created with a new uuid in it. On success, prints no output.

       --version
           Print the version of dbus-uuidgen

AUTHOR
       See http://www.freedesktop.org/software/dbus/doc/AUTHORS

BUGS
       Please send bug reports to the D-Bus mailing list or bug tracker, see http://www.freedesktop.org/software/dbus/

D-Bus 1.14.4                                                                                                        DBUS-UUIDGEN(1)