DOKK / manpages / debian 11 / util-linux / mcookie.1.en
MCOOKIE(1) User Commands MCOOKIE(1)

mcookie - generate magic cookies for xauth

mcookie [options]

mcookie generates a 128-bit random hexadecimal number for use with the X authority system. Typical usage:

xauth add :0 . `mcookie`

The "random" number generated is actually the MD5 message digest of random information coming from one of the sources getrandom() system call, /dev/urandom, /dev/random, or the libc pseudo-random functions, in this preference order. See also the option --file.

Use this file as an additional source of randomness (for example /dev/urandom). When file is '-', characters are read from standard input.
Read from file only this number of bytes. This option is meant to be used when reading additional randomness from a file or device.
The number argument may be followed by the multiplicative suffixes KiB=1024, MiB=1024*1024, and so on for GiB, TiB, PiB, EiB, ZiB and YiB (the "iB" is optional, e.g., "K" has the same meaning as "KiB") or the suffixes KB=1000, MB=1000*1000, and so on for GB, TB, PB, EB, ZB and YB.
Inform where randomness originated, with amount of entropy read from each source.
Display version information and exit.
Display help text and exit.

/dev/urandom
/dev/random

It is assumed that none of the randomness sources will block.

md5sum(1), X(7), xauth(1), rand(3)

The mcookie command is part of the util-linux package and is available from Linux Kernel Archive.

December 2014 util-linux