openssl-rand - generate pseudo-random bytes
Contents
Copyright
Copyright 2000-2021 The OpenSSL Project Authors. All Rights Reserved.
Licensed under the Apache License 2.0 (the "License"). You may not use this file except in compliance
with the License. You can obtain a copy in the file LICENSE in the source distribution or at
<https://www.openssl.org/source/license.html>.
3.4.1 2025-04-03 OPENSSL-RAND(1SSL)
Description
This command generates num random bytes using a cryptographically secure pseudo random number generator
(CSPRNG). A suffix [K|M|G|T] may be appended to the num value to indicate the requested value be scaled
as a multiple of KiB/MiB/GiB/TiB respectively. Note that suffixes are case sensitive, and that the
suffixes represent binary multiples (K = 1024 bytes, M = 1024*1024 bytes, etc).
The string 'max' may be substituted for a numerical value in num, to request the maximum number of bytes
the CSPRNG can produce per instantiation. Currently, this is restricted to 2^61 bytes as per NIST SP
800-90C.
The random bytes are generated using the RAND_bytes(3) function, which provides a security level of 256
bits, provided it managed to seed itself successfully from a trusted operating system entropy source.
Otherwise, the command will fail with a nonzero error code. For more details, see RAND_bytes(3),
RAND(7), and EVP_RAND(7).
History
The -engine option was deprecated in OpenSSL 3.0.
Name
openssl-rand - generate pseudo-random bytes
Options
-help
Print out a usage message.
-outfile
Write to file instead of standard output.
-base64
Perform base64 encoding on the output.
-hex
Show the output as a hex string.
-engineid
See "Engine Options" in openssl(1). This option is deprecated.
-randfiles, -writerandfile
See "Random State Options" in openssl(1) for details.
-providername-provider-pathpath-propquerypropq
See "Provider Options" in openssl(1), provider(7), and property(7).
See Also
openssl(1), RAND_bytes(3), RAND(7), EVP_RAND(7)
Synopsis
opensslrand [-help] [-outfile] [-base64] [-hex] [-engineid] [-randfiles] [-writerandfile] [-providername] [-provider-pathpath] [-propquerypropq] num[K|M|G|T]
