topic Re: Serial number on 11.00 system in Operating System - HP-UX

Serial number on 11.00 system

Siddharth Tuli — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 00:54:32 GMT

Hi

I am trying to find machine serial number on HPUX 11.00 system. I have two systems with models, 9000/712/100 and 9000/869/K420.

I could find a thread relating to serial number,
http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1139615

I tried methods in that thread, but no success.

Is there any way arounf to get the serial number for the above models ?

How should I know which is the class of the machine having the model 9000/712/100 ?

Please help

Thanks
Siddharth

Re: Serial number on 11.00 system

Dennis Handly — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 00:58:48 GMT

I assume the serial # is on the back of your 712. This workstation came out before classes were used.

Re: Serial number on 11.00 system

Siddharth Tuli — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 06:30:24 GMT

Thanks Dennis.

The software id (machine id) is available on these machines.

I can use uname -i to find software id. Is this a good way to find software id of any machine ? Because the man page states if the machine id cannot be found node name is displayed.

Is there any possibility that machine's software id is not present ? Why is it so?

Thanks
Siddharth

Re: Serial number on 11.00 system

Aneesh Mohan — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 07:48:44 GMT

Hello Siddharth,

Try this.

/usr/contrib/bin/machinfo |grep -i serial

/Aneesh

Re: Serial number on 11.00 system

Torsten. — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 07:51:23 GMT

forget about machinfo!

Your systems are pretty old - the machine ID is based on the built-in NIC's MAC address.

Of cause the machine ID should be displayed - but the serial number is only written on the chassis. No way to read it by a program.

Re: Serial number on 11.00 system

Siddharth Tuli — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 22:54:02 GMT

Thanks Trosten

Please also throw light on the following queries (for any system in general)

I am in need of a unique machine identity.
I can use the software id by "uname -i". Is this a good way to find software id of any machine ? Because the man page states if the machine id cannot be found node name is displayed.

Is there any possibility that machine's software id is not present ? Why is it so?

IS there any othe unique id for a system ?

Thanks
Siddharth

Re: Serial number on 11.00 system

Torsten. — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 00:00:12 GMT

The software ID is what you need. This is unique to a system.
Never seen the node name instead.

Re: Serial number on 11.00 system

Dennis Handly — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 01:17:27 GMT

>Torsten: Never seen the node name instead.

I've seen or heard about -1 showing up for some prototypes or some upgrade where the CE didn't finish the job.

Re: Serial number on 11.00 system

Torsten. — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 07:52:51 GMT

Hehe Dennis, but this should (!) be unlikely.

Re: Serial number on 11.00 system

Srinivas Thokala_1 — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 11:00:30 GMT

To get the server serial number at command line, which is mostly required to place a HP call:
Here is a command line that will produce serial number on those machines that will support
storing serial numbers. This works on L-class and above. Here is the command:
#echo "sel path 'system' ; info; wait infolog" |cstm|grep -i "system serial number"
What is returned: System Serial Number issued by vendor HP.

You can also get by running 'cstm', if required I can provide more info on how to get.

If you are try to get Machine ID, which is generally required for procering S/W licenses, then use

#sam
select options performance monitoring
then system properties and you will see a unique Machine ID.

Srinivas

Re: Serial number on 11.00 system

Bill Hassell — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 19:50:54 GMT

The 712 workstation and the K420 do not have the serial number stored in the computer. This is true for all 700 models, all K-class models (and D-class). True serial numbers (matching the paper or foil sticker on the chassis) started somewhere in the N-class era and later. The 712 is a an HP 9000 series, 700 class (or series), with /100 referring to the processor speed. Note that workstations were the only category of HP-UX systems to include the processor speed. Servers usually had their marketing series after the model number, but some servers report just a generic 800 for the model.

For all HP-UX models old and new, uname -i provides a unique machine identifier. The number is generated automatically at the factory (or by your service engineer when replacing the CPU board) and is a combination of the machine's model and characteristics with part of the actual serial number, all encoded into a single number. Decades ago, the old Motorola workstations had no onboard number so the MAC address of the LAN (only one typically) was used. The first PA-RISC server was the 840 my hazy recollection seems to remember it had the built-in machine identifier.

So for the purposes of identifying every machine uniquely (such as for licensing), the uname -i value is correct. Any negative number or short number (5 digits or less) is invalid and must be restored by an HP service person.