Generate random string using OpenSSL

Basic usage to generate random string

openssl rand -hex [length]

Generate random string with specific length

Generate random string with 32 bytes length.

openssl rand -hex 32

The output will be:

9a64905a171a72ef0e06762bfd950d40612d615a80a6309083390f4dc7d826f9 # or something like this

When you use the -hex option with openssl rand command, it shows the random data as a series of hexadecimal numbers. The argument (number) 32 means it’s showing 32 bytes of data. This results in a string with 64 characters, because each byte is represented by two hexadecimal digits.

Useful links

• OpenSSL rand command