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Common methods to generate random strings

2022-02-09

Every few months, I find myself needing to generate random strings for identifiers, passwords, tokens, and other purposes. Here's what I've been relying on:

# Generate hexidecimal string
openssl rand -hex 32
# 421b8623f2dd6d9765ebfac6905caa070bb2853185c85d14c3c069cb08986c8e

# Generate base32 string
openssl rand -base64 32
# tRCbaVbHWTuUzd5Ag7NDaQrPGI5G/2Ui5KZ5Vc6qGqk=

# Generate a UUID
uuidgen
# f080bfcc-ed62-4453-82b2-cd6f2f958870