Gotta start somewhere ... how many of us are really out there?

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "User Freebsd" <freebsd at hub.org>
To: "Xiao-Yong Jin" <xj2106 at columbia.edu>
Cc: <freebsd-questions at freebsd.org>
Sent: Monday, July 31, 2006 6:08 PM
Subject: Re: Gotta start somewhere ... how many of us are really out there?


> On Mon, 31 Jul 2006, Xiao-Yong Jin wrote:
>
> > Chris Whitehouse <chris at childeric.freeserve.co.uk> writes:
> >
> >> Alex Zbyslaw wrote:
> >>> Counting portsnap and cvsup accesses is non-intrusive - i.e. nothing
> >>> sent from local host - will count systems from any version of
> >>> FreeBSD, but will never count everything because sites with multiple
> >>> hosts may easily have local propagation mechanisms.  But you will
> >>> get an order of magnitude.  However, how do you deal with systems
> >>> with variable IPs?  I don't know enough about the internals of
> >>> either portsnap or cvsup to know if there is some kind of unique id
> >>> associated with hosts.  If not, then you'd wildly over count for
> >>> many home-based, variable IP systems.
> >>
> >> Maybe not so many, my non-static ip hasn't changed since I signed up 3
> >> years ago despite turning off the modem for the odd day or
> >> two. Another network I look after also hasn't changed in a year.
> >>
> > But one can't rely on that.  You'll definitely see more than one ip
> > associated with my laptop, if I move it around.
> >
> > A more reliable way that I can think of is generating a unique ID
> > number when a system finishes installation or upon the first boot.
> > However, it may involve some additional privacy problem.  What do you
> > think?
>
> How does Solaris generate its 'hostid'?  Is it a hardware/sparc thing, or
> software?
>

All Sparc processors have serial numbers, always had.  Sun's compiler and
some other
programs of theirs are serialized and when you buy them you have to send in
the
cpu serial number to Sun who generates a key that will only allow the
compiler
to run on that system.  If you move the compiler you have to get another key
and
certify to Sun with a legal document that you will not run it on the old
system, etc.

At least that was how it worked last I dealt with that about 7 years ago.

I believe modern pentiums are also serialized.  There's ways to do a unique
ID
nowadays.  None of them are portable and so these methods are frowned on.

Ted