Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!umd5!brl-adm!adm!rbj@icst-cmr.arpa From: rbj@icst-cmr.arpa (Root Boy Jim) Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards Subject: Reading VAX SID register on ultrix or 4.3bsd Message-ID: <13084@brl-adm.ARPA> Date: 22 Apr 88 21:21:46 GMT Sender: news@brl-adm.ARPA Lines: 34 From: Chris Torek >In article <561@neptune.AMD.COM> katni@neptune.AMD.COM (Katni V) writes: >> I need to read the VAX SID register. Is there a system function ... It will need more than that; the super user is still a user. I am not sure why you would want to do this; the SID register is grossly cpu-dependent and cannot be used as a serial number for software registration purposes, as some Vaxen do not have anything resembling a serial number in the SID (just various revision numbers). True, but it is likely that a given site might have all different `serial numbers'. This could be used, say, to divine the machine's hostname, allowing one copy of /etc/rc to be rdist'ed everywhere. Granted, the motivation for doing this is slight (and one could put the hostname line in it's own file and invoke it as `sh /etc/rc.hostname'), but someone might want to. If all you want is the CPU type, read the kernel variable `cpu'. It will be one of the VAX_xxx's defined in . Good point. In fact, why not just have locore.s grab the SID shortly after boot and stick it into a global variable `sid'? I seem to remember Chris long ago railing against myriad of `get interesting kernel variable' system calls. I would imagine his opinion has not changed on that matter. In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7163) Domain: chris@mimsy.umd.edu Path: uunet!mimsy!chris (Root Boy) Jim Cottrell National Bureau of Standards Flamer's Hotline: (301) 975-5688 The opinions expressed are solely my own and do not reflect NBS policy or agreement It don't mean a THING if you ain't got that SWING!!