On Tue, 9 Sep 2003, Ulrich Drepper wrote:
This is the job of the gethostid() function which is even in POSIX so
you really shouldn't have looked far.
But the implementation of this function isn't something you will like.
It does not provide a secure mechanism. The sysadmin is able to change
the information at will. Well, using the uname() function would have
the same problem. One would just have to preload a DSO with the
appropriate gethostid/uname/... implementation which returns the right
number.
If you need something which cannot be tempered with you need to install
extra hardware like a dongle.
Dongles can be tampered with using a logic probe and
oscilloscope. ;o)
--
Mike A. Harris
ftp://people.redhat.com/mharris
OS Systems Engineer - XFree86 maintainer - Red Hat