what is the purpose of hostid

[senthil_kumar_1]

Hi All,

My superior asked me for HPUX and Linux hostid.

How to find that and what is the command to view the hostid for HPUX and Linux server.

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi:

Do you have a name or a label by which you are known?

# hostname
# uname -n

...JRF...

[Jeff_Traigle · Accepted solution]

For HP-UX:

uname -i

For Linux:

hostid

I think it was primarily used by some licensing mechanisms. (At least, that's all I ever recall using it for in the old days when I supported SunOS 4.X and IRIX.) Don't know if it still is or not.

[VK2COT]

Hello,

Hostid is not a very valuable piece of
information nowdays.

I am not sure why your manager would
asko for it. In olden times, various
software were licensed against hostid.
That way it was supposed to ensure there was
not abuse of running the "unlicensed"
software.

Here are some ideas how to obtain hostid
that FlexLM on different platforms...

AIX (RS/6000, PPC):
"uname -m" (returns a numberic value, remove
last two digits, and use the remaining
eight digits

DEC Alpha:
"netstat -i"

HP-UX (32-bit and 64-bit, non-Itanium):
"uname -i" and convert to hex, or add prefix
character #

HP-UX (64-bit Itanium):
"getconf CS_PARTITION_IDENT"
then add prefix â ID_STRING=â

Linux:
"/sbin/ifconfig " (typically the first EThernet card) and remove colons from the
HW address, or, if the command exists:
"hostid"

Solaris:
"hostid"

And so on...

VK2COT

[prisca3]

try 'machinfo' It returns id number which is the same as hostid. but this command is only available on Itanium servers. (It is also avilable on HP900s running 11iV3)

[Kranti Mahmud]

Hi Senthil,

Use the foillowing command for viewing hostid as

For HP-UX systems : uname -i

For Linux systems : hostid

Rgds-Kranti