How to create a random string in standard shell on hp-ux

Question

I need to create a shell script or a command that will produce random string, something like this:

date | md5sum

but it needs to work on default hp-ux installation, which doesn't contain any md5sum, there is neither /dev/random or /dev/urandom

Someone has an idea if that is even possible and if yes, how?

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 03 '14 at 14:16

1

If you have BASH OR ksh you can use $RANDOM variable:

rand=$RANDOM

answered Feb 03 '14 at 14:16

anubhava

wow, that's nice, now I just need to make a string from that somehow... but that should be easy – Petr Feb 03 '14 at 14:18
Yes just `rand=$RANDOM` is good enough. You can then use `$rand` as a string. – anubhava Feb 03 '14 at 14:19

1 Answers1