[Sunhelp] finding out serial #

[dhansen at zebra.net]

>From:           	singer at redbrick.dcu.ie (Brian Scanlan)

>On Thu, Jul 20, 2000 at 01:30:28PM -0400, Dale Ghent wrote:
>> It's a real bummer, too. Especially when the machine you need the SN of is
>> sitting in a remote and unmanned POP. In IRIX on a SGI, it's as simple as
>> the amsysinfo command. With Sun, you have to psysically find it. I find
>> this omission kinda hard to believe.

>It's a deliberate policy.

Taking inventory is another very important task that should not be forgotten.

 Out of curiousity, where do people expect something like that to be stored:
    the NVRAM?   what happens when/if that gets replaced?
    a chip on the Mainboard?  what happens when/if that gets replaced?
    etc...?  what happens when/if that gets replaced?

 Only relatively recent SGI hardware platforms have machine readable
serial numbers. Amsysinfo cannot return a serial number on any
piece of hardware that doesn't give it out which leaves an Irix admin in 
the same situation if s/he has any older hardware. However, I do wonder where
SGI decided was a logical place to store that kind of information. Anyone
know?

 -david