System ID

[truedatt]

This may have been asked before, but since this is my first post I'll ask it anyway. Does anyone know of a way to obtain a unique system id under linux (Redhat 6.2)? Under IRIX, I can use the function "systune" to obtain the system id. Anyone know what I'm talking about or a way to find a system id in linux? Thanks!

[paco]

system id?

[truedatt]

Yeah, it's a hexidecimal number that may look something like this:

0x690D5AA0

That would be the "system id" for a given machine.

[paco]

never heard of such a thing ??

can you compare it with something ??

Is it for network use or something ??

[Badfrog66]

You mean like a GUID for Winders?

[truedatt]

It's just a unique system identifier that isn't the same for any other machine. Thus you can tell machines apart from each other by this system identifier. I was wondering if, in linux, there was a way of obtaining this information.

[groundzero]

Do you mean a MAC address on the nic card??

[truedatt]

Well, that may be the only address that's obtainable in linux. Specifically, I was looking for a system id (probably motherboard specific instead of nic specific).

[bdg1983]

Try 'sysinfo' as it reports on just about everything about your system.

[Craig McPherson]

Well, IRIX only runs on SGI hardware, right? Then I assume your "System ID" is something built into the hardware rather than any particular feature of the operating system.

Thus, you're limited by whatever architecture you're running Linux on.

I'll assume you're talking about Intel architecture, here. The motherboard does not have any sort of unique ID. Your NIC does (MAC address), your hard drive does (serial number), and Pentium III and IV CPUs have the controversial "CPU ID". The CPU ID might be your best bet, although the privacy concerns are ENORMOUS if you turn it on -- do you remember the huge Intel boycott when the feature was announced? The protests and boycotts and bad publicity forced motherboard manufacturers to block access to the ID through the BIOS, unless the user chose to turn it on in the CMOS settings.

If you do decide to turn on the processor serial number, I think there are Linux programs that'll let you read it. Do some Google searching and you'll turn something up. You may wind up having to write a simple program of your own, though. Or you may be better off writing a program to grab the hard drive serial number, or something like that.

Hopefully this will get you started on some research ideas.