hostid?

[Cameron Laird]

In article <mailman.1035069684.26881.python-list at python.org>,
Skip Montanaro  <skip at pobox.com> wrote:
>    Lance> Thanks all for the advice.. but I'm still not getting the hostid
>    Lance> to which I refer. At work we use the Flexlm license manager. It
>    Lance> requires users to send us the hostid of their computer. For
>    Lance> example, the computer on which I write this has hostid
>    Lance> 00d009b88fca and the hostname is the name of my computer which is
>    Lance> MYNEWBOX.
>
>I seem to recall that Sun's had a CPU-specific hostid.  I just checked on a
>Sun I have access to.  It has a "hostid" command.  So does Linux, at least
>the Mandrake and Red Hat systems to which I have access.  My Mac (OS 10.2.1)
>doesn't.)
>
>Why not just encapsulate it in a function?
>
>    def hostid():
>        return os.popen("hostid").read().strip()
>
>If executing the hostid command isn't an option, you could write a little
>extension module which calls the gethostid() library function.  Both Linux
>and Solaris seem you have it.
			.
			.
			.
Right.  hostid is NOT an artifice of FlexLM; it has
a distinguished pedigree that goes back reasonably
far in Unix circles.  While POSIX.1 does not include
hostid (or gethostid()), they're present in ISO/IEC
9945-1:1990.  They're part of SVr4.

On the other hand, I think HP-UX has dropped hostid.

Did someone in this thread make the point that, if
the requirement is to meet some expectation of the
commercial FlexLM product, then it's natural to
look first to Globetrotter (FlexLM's vendor) for the
necessary information?  That's my instinctive
position.
-- 

Cameron Laird <Cameron at Lairds.com>
Business:  http://www.Phaseit.net
Personal:  http://phaseit.net/claird/home.html