[geeks] generating unique systemids

[Lionel Peterson]

>From: Doug McLaren <dougmc at frenzied.us>
>Date: 2007/08/27 Mon PM 03:51:03 CDT
>To: The Geeks List <geeks at sunhelp.org>
>Subject: Re: [geeks] generating unique systemids

>On Mon, Aug 27, 2007 at 02:57:00PM -0400, Dave K wrote:
>
>| On 8/27/07, Charles Shannon Hendrix <shannon at widomaker.com> wrote:
>| > Does anyone know a decent way to generate a unique system ID
>| > for a PC server running FreeBSD?
>| 
>| First thought that popped into mind:
>| 
>| MAC Address of the primary interface?
>
>That is the answer used by most commercial software that creates and
>uses system IDs for licensing purposes.
>
>Of course, the problems tend to be --
>
>  -- which interface is the primary?  You might think you know, but
>     often you just don't, or the smallest system change will change
>     the order of the interfaces.
>
>  -- MAC IDs are easy to change.
>
>  -- ... but not so easy that most people won't want a new license key
>     for their new hardware.

Does it need to be the primary MAC ID? Why not just check for the licensed MAC ID, thenif there is a disaster, they can migrate the nic and have an active license. Also, some USB flash drives have unique IDs, you could exploit that as a USB dongle, again, easily tranferred to a backup system in case of system failure.

Lionel