I have a ksh script that generates a long random string using /dev/urandomand tr:
STRING="$(cat /dev/urandom|tr -dc 'a-zA-Z0-9-_'|fold -w 64 |head -1)"
On Linux and AIX servers where I used this, you got 64 alpha and lowercase alpha characters, numbers, dashes and underscores. Example:
W-uch3_4fbnk34u2nc08w_nj23n089023ncNjxz979823n23-n88h30pmLCxkMKj
When I used the script in Solaris, the ranges were interpreted as literals, and this led to the lines from the set aAzZ09-_. Example:
AA0z9_aZ-a-z00aZ9_azAZa0zZza9-Az0-_za-9aa0az_a0z-0a0z000-A9Z_0a
Oddly enough, on this Solaris server, the man page for trindicates that the syntax used was supposed to give the desired result.
The idea is to use /dev/urandoma pseudo-random string from which we extract characters so that the result a) does not contain spaces and b) does not contain special shell characters. The string will be used on the command line as an argument later in the script. We do not want to use classes such as :alnum:because locale can convert them to multibyte values that do not work on the command line. This one-liner ksh did the trick perfectly on many installations until we got to Solaris.
Perl. tr - ksh, UNIX- ? , .
. Locale . xpg6.
$ uname -a
SunOS hostname 5.10 Generic_142900-04 sun4u sparc SUNW,SPARC-Enterprise
$ cat /dev/urandom | tr -dc "a-zA-Z0-9-_" | fold -w 64 | head -1 | sed 's/^-/_/'
0-a9-z9a_zzZAa_a_0az-9_z0a_90Z_9az09aZzZAa-9aa_-__za0ZA9_ZzzZazA
$ set | grep '^L[AC]'
LANG=C
LC_ALL=C
LC_COLLATE=en_US
LC_CTYPE=en_US
LC_MESSAGES=en_US
LC_MONETARY=en_US
LC_NUMERIC=en_US
LC_TIME=en_US
$ export LC_CTYPE="$LC_ALL" LC_MESSAGES="$LC_ALL"
$ set | grep '^L[AC]'
LANG=C
LC_ALL=C
LC_COLLATE=en_US
LC_CTYPE=C
LC_MESSAGES=C
LC_MONETARY=en_US
LC_NUMERIC=en_US
LC_TIME=en_US
$ cat /dev/urandom | tr -dc "a-zA-Z0-9-_" | fold -w 64 | head -1 | sed 's/^-/_/'
0900z9az99_a0za09__0zA0_Z--Z_-Aa-AaA9zAZz-Aa90A00z__ZzA9A-Z0aA_-
$ unset LC_ALL; export LC_COLLATE=C LC_NUMERIC=C LC_TIME=C
$ set | grep '^L[AC]'
LANG=C
LC_COLLATE=C
LC_CTYPE=C
LC_MESSAGES=C
LC_MONETARY=en_US
LC_NUMERIC=C
LC_TIME=C
$ cat /dev/urandom | tr -dc "a-zA-Z0-9-_" | fold -w 64 | head -1 | sed 's/^-/_/'
_AA9aA_Za-A0-AZa_A-0ZA--a_za-a9zZZz__a0az_-0A-9-0aA-0za00A-__9-0
$ unset LANG LC_COLLATE LC_NUMERIC LC_TIME
$ set | grep '^L[AC]'
LC_CTYPE=C
LC_MESSAGES=C
LC_MONETARY=en_US
$ cat /dev/urandom | tr -dc "a-zA-Z0-9-_" | fold -w 64 | head -1 | sed 's/^-/_/'
_-_9zz9Z-Z-Z-Z_0_a9zzzZZaAa--9_zAZaaAZz-ZaAZ09Z-_z-zz09ZZAzAz0Z0
$ unset LC_CTYPE LC_MESSAGES LC_MONETARY
$ set | grep '^L[AC]'
$ cat /dev/urandom | tr -dc "a-zA-Z0-9-_" | fold -w 64 | head -1 | sed 's/^-/_/'
_0aAa9_Z_a_Z--_Az-aa0ZA0ZzZ-9Aa9-Z0--0A_Z0Zaz-AA_Zz0z---Z_99z_a9
$ export LANG=C LC_ALL=C LC_COLLATE=C LC_CTYPE=C LC_MESSAGES=C LC_MONETARY=C LC_NUMERIC=C LC_TIME=C
$ set | grep '^L[AC]'
LANG=C
LC_ALL=C
LC_COLLATE=C
LC_CTYPE=C
LC_MESSAGES=C
LC_MONETARY=C
LC_NUMERIC=C
LC_TIME=C
$ cat /dev/urandom | tr -dc "a-zA-Z0-9-_" | fold -w 64 | head -1 | sed 's/^-/_/'
Za_000z9aa--aA00zAAZza0AA90090--z0a00_zZ9ZA0_---aZZ09a0ZA0_0zZaa
$ cat /dev/urandom | tr -dc "[a-z][A-Z][0-9]-_" | fold -w 64 | head -1 | sed 's/^-/_/'
x7dni9gIXVF6AHQc3B-H6hjnBVHChJ9zM-z5EQ5UEruATI_NNFaCoVLOqM6gVaT5
$
, Linux .