topic Re: HOST ID in Operating System - HP-UX

HOST ID

Karthik S S — Fri, 14 Nov 2003 21:02:28 GMT

Hi,

I am not sure if we should use the "uname -i" command to find the host ID of the hp-ux box. Is there any other command to find the host ID of the hp-ux system (with Sun Solaris there is "hostid" command available).

Thanks in advance,
Karthik S S

Re: HOST ID

Jorge Fabregas — Fri, 14 Nov 2003 21:07:52 GMT

Hello,

Yes. It is "hostname".

Jorge

Re: HOST ID

Karthik S S — Fri, 14 Nov 2003 21:09:57 GMT

Not the host name but the unique host ID of the system which can be used for obtaining HOSTID based license softwares.
-Karthik S S

Re: HOST ID

Bill Hassell — Fri, 14 Nov 2003 21:29:51 GMT

There are two Unix names, the name returned by uname -i (which is the UUCP name and must 8 characters or less) and hostname returns the ARPA style name. There are other networking services (not commonly used) that may have other names. (see man 1 uname). For sanity, the strong sysadmin will resist attempts to dictate incompatible names and keep uname and hostname the same. They can be, even if the ARPA (ie, TCP/IP LAN name) name must larger than 8 characters. This is done through the /etc/hosts file with aliases and /etc/hosts is queried based on rules in the /etc/nsswitch.conf file.

To create a separate UUCP and hostname, edit the /etc/rc.config.d/netconf file and add the undocumented variable: NODENAME to set UUCP (uname -i) separately. For example:

HOSTNAME=reallylongname
NODENAME=reallyln

and in /etc/hosts:

12.34.56.78 reallylongname reallyln

Noe name resolution will succeed for reallylongname as well as reallyln.

Re: HOST ID

James A. Donovan — Fri, 14 Nov 2003 22:14:57 GMT

The output from "uname -i" is the number that Veritas (and probably any other company) is looking for when they request a hostid in order to provide a license key.

Re: HOST ID

James A. Donovan — Fri, 14 Nov 2003 22:21:41 GMT

...and if you've set NODENAME within the netconf file, then you could use "getconf MACHINE_IDENT"

Re: HOST ID

Norman_21 — Fri, 14 Nov 2003 22:54:56 GMT

#uname -i ( is the command to view the Host identification number).
The ss_config utility is used to change the Host ID which can be used only by HP engineers, customers are not allowed to use this utility, since you can fake alot of hardware information.
Our Production server use to crash all the time and guess what, the Host ID wasn't the correct one after HP has replaced the system board they forgot to change the Host ID!
Now, it's OK.

Hope this help

Re: HOST ID

Hemanth Gurunath Basrur — Sat, 15 Nov 2003 01:31:38 GMT

Hello Karthik,

On a HP-UX system, run the command "/bin/hostname" to display the hostname. Run the command "uname -i". This will display a string of characters (e.g. 123AB456). You need to add a "#" character to the beginning of this string. For example, if the "uname -i" command returns "123AB456", then your Host ID is "#123AB456".

Source:
http://www.intel.com/software/products/support/hostinfo.htm

HTH.

Regards,
Hemanth

Re: HOST ID

Zigor Buruaga — Sat, 15 Nov 2003 06:33:17 GMT

Hi,

I don't know if this will help, but anyway take a look at this link:
http://h21007.www2.hp.com/dspp/tech/tech_TechSingleTipDetailPage_IDX/1,2366,1171,00.html

Kind regards,
Zigor

Re: HOST ID

Ratzie — Sat, 15 Nov 2003 18:11:12 GMT

# model
will get all the info that you need as well

Re: HOST ID

Jeff Schussele — Sun, 16 Nov 2003 14:36:06 GMT

Hi Karthik,

One of the diffs between Sun & HP is that Sun tends to use the MAC id of the built-in NIC or a variation thereof as it's primary ID. HP doesn't as a rule.
There are diff HP SW licensing schemes - flex comes to mind that do use this schema.
So the question becomes - Why do you need HostID?

Jeff

Re: HOST ID

Bill Hassell — Sun, 16 Nov 2003 19:47:36 GMT

Actually,HP used the NIC hardware address for all the original HP 9000 computers (the 300 and 400 series). With the PA-RISC machines,the need for a system-unique ID was needed (multiple NIC cards complicate things) and with the advent of Swithover (now called Service Gaurd) the need to change the NIC's MAC address was required, thus making the NIC almost useless for licensing controls.

Re: HOST ID

clar_1 — Tue, 08 Jun 2004 02:43:52 GMT

Hi Karthik

You can give "echo `uname -i` 16op | dc" to get the hostid of the system.

Note : Do not give the double quotes,while executing it.

Regards
Jai

Re: HOST ID

Bharat Katkar — Tue, 08 Jun 2004 03:19:10 GMT

Karthik,
I know the only way i can get the hostid is thr'

# uname -i

Regards,

Re: HOST ID

Karthik S S — Tue, 08 Jun 2004 11:54:46 GMT

Clar,

Your command sure does return some number :-)) .. but is there any document that says this is the way to retrieve the host ID??

Thanks Bharat ..

-Karthik S S

Re: HOST ID

Gregory Fruth — Tue, 08 Jun 2004 12:13:14 GMT

"host ID" is not a well-defined term for
all Unixes. Evidently on Solaris they
define it like this:

"host ID": (noun) the value returned
by the "hostid" command

HP-UX does not have such a definition.
You need to ask your application vendor
what number they're looking for.

Re: HOST ID

Victor BERRIDGE — Tue, 08 Jun 2004 12:20:31 GMT

Hi,
Of course looking at the mans you would see for solaris:
hostid - print the numeric identifier of the current host

SYNOPSIS
/usr/bin/hostid

DESCRIPTION
The hostid command prints the identifier of the current host
in hexadecimal. This numeric value is likely to differ when
hostid is run on a different machine.
I like the "likely to differ"...
on HP man uname...
-i Display the machine identification number (or the
node name, if the machine identification number
cannot be determined). This option cannot display
the unique machine identification number. For
getting the unique machine identification number
refer to the getconf command or confstr call. See
getconf(1)) and confstr(3C).

Now I havent yet found a difference between uname -i and getconf MACHINE_IDENT:
octant # getconf MACHINE_IDENT
168921511
octant # uname -i
168921511

So as far as SAS institute are happy with the output of uname -i to generate theyr licence key I suppose its good enough

All the best
Victor

Re: HOST ID

Victor BERRIDGE — Tue, 08 Jun 2004 12:35:19 GMT

And I just realised:
# /usr/sam/lbin/samx -C /usr/sam/lib/C/mo.ui
If you look shows a field as Machine Identification:<>

All the best

Victor

Re: HOST ID

Bill Hassell — Tue, 08 Jun 2004 13:02:27 GMT

uname -i and getconf will return the same value on virtually all current machines. I suspect that the disclaimer about uname -i is the possibility of new hardware designs that use a different mechanism to establish the ID number. The creation of the ID number for each computer was defined more than a decade ago when one processor was all there was. Now, a CPU board may contain two processors, a system may contain 64 processors and with computer partitioning, multiple processors in multiple partitions are a possibility--hence the reason for disclaimer.

Re: HOST ID

Sundar_7 — Tue, 08 Jun 2004 17:40:46 GMT

Hi Karthik,

Also have a look at i4target

# /opt/ifor/ls/bin/i4target -v

Sundar