Unique PC identifier
Daniel G. Ritzinger
I'm involved in a project that will operate in a network environment.
The software will be installed on the server, and accessed by multiple
workstation PC's. As a user starts up the software from a workstation
I need to identify that particular PC. I will build an index of
workstation "ID's" on the server. Each ID must, of course, be unique.
As files are created on the server, the ID of the remote workstation
that created it will be used as part of the filename. The question:
is there anything in ROM (or anywhere else) on each workstation that
is constant and could be used as an ID? I thought about using the
volser of the workstation hard drive, but not all workstations will
necessarily have a hard drive. Is there anything like a machine or
chip serial number that I can access? An option would be to prompt
each user for a PC ID the first time the PC was used, and write it
out to a file on the hard drive. But... as mentioned, there may not
be a hard drive. NOTE: I need to identify a machine, not a person,
I as will be storing a "profile" of each workstation on the
server (operating system, modem specs, etc). Can anyone help me?
Thanks!
James Coons
> ... I need to identify that particular PC. ... Each ID must, of course,
> be unique.
> Is there anything like a machine or chip serial number that I can
In a network environment, you should be able to access the system's
STATION_ID or WORKSTATION_ID variable (I forget which). This can be
available in the generic LOGIN script by doing "SET ID=STATION_ID" (or
whatever the variable is called). Your program should then be able to
access the variable directly. We used to have our LOGIN name set in the
variable ID using this method. Not having a hard disk makes this more
difficult, 'coz I don't know how you would do that in COBOL. Now that I
think about it, I'm not sure if this gives a unique number for each
workstation or just per LOGIN session. Since they have to boot from either
the LAN or a diskette, the diskette could contain "SET ID=xxx", where
"xxx" is a unique id, but this assumes that nobody boots from anybody
else's PC using the boot disk.
I hope this has helped in some small way.
--
James Coons, Programmer, Inventor-At-Large
(Remove "/NOSPAM" from my eMail address to respond).
"There are 2 secrets to success: (1) Never tell anyone everything you know
and (2) Never tell anyone secret #1."