This is the universally unique ID library, part of util-linux. The libuuid library generates and parses 128-bit universally unique id's (UUID's). A UUID is an identifier that is unique across both space and time, with respect to the space of all UUIDs. A UUID can be used for multiple purposes, from tagging objects with an extremely short lifetime, to reliably identifying very persistent objects across a network. See also the "uuid" package, which is a separate implementation.