Getting Your Linux Computer's Hostid

June 19, 2008

Unlike Solaris, where one can simply type the hostid command, the value returned by the the Linux hostid command is not the same value that we obtain from our security software. Therefore one must use the utility, hostinfo, to obtain the "correct" hostid for licensing Artwork's software.

An example is shown below:

If I type hostid on my Linux box (this happens to be RHEL4) I get the value for hostid 7f0100.

asmsc37:stevedb: $ hostid
7f0100

This is not good - if I send this "hostid" value to Artwork to obtain a software license the software will not run. That is because it retrieves a different value for hostid. Instead, I should download the hostinfo.linux.tar utility from Artwork's FTP server, untar it, and execute it as shown below:

asmsc37:stevedb: $ ./hostinfo

 To obtain program activation codes ..
 Please send the following information to:

   Artwork Conversion Software, Inc.
   417 Ingalls Street
   Santa Cruz, CA 95060-5836
   U.S.A.

   Phone: +1 831 426 6163
  
   EMail: info@artwork.com
   Web  : http://www.artwork.com

 HOSTID   = (hex)2a9bed4f  (dec)714861903
 HOSTNAME = asmsc37

As far as we know, this utility works on all of the various flavors of Linux we have tested including RH3, RH4, Suse and Ubuntu. If you find otherwise, please send an email to support@artwork.com.