GETHOSTID(2)		   Linux Programmers Manual		 GETHOSTID(2)



NAME
       gethostid,  sethostid - get or set the unique identifier of the current
       host

SYNOPSIS
       #include 

       long gethostid(void);
       int sethostid(long hostid);

   Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)):

       sethostid(): _BSD_SOURCE || (_XOPEN_SOURCE && _XOPEN_SOURCE < 500)

DESCRIPTION
       Get or set a unique 32-bit identifier for  the  current	machine.   The
       32-bit  identifier  is  intended to be unique among all Unix systems in
       existence.  This normally resembles the Internet address for the  local
       machine,  as returned by gethostbyname(3), and thus usually never needs
       to be set.

       The sethostid() call is restricted to the superuser.

       The hostid argument is stored in the file /etc/hostid.

RETURN VALUE
       gethostid() returns the 32-bit identifier for the current host  as  set
       by sethostid().

FILES
       /etc/hostid

CONFORMING TO
       4.2BSD;	these  functions  were dropped in 4.4BSD.  SVr4 includes geth
       ostid() but not sethostid().  POSIX.1-2001  specifies  gethostid()  but
       not sethostid().

NOTES
       In  the	glibc  implementation, if gethostid() cannot open /etc/hostid,
       then it obtains the hostname using gethostname(2), passes that hostname
       to  gethostbyname_r(3)  in order to obtain the hosts IPv4 address, and
       returns a value obtained by  bit-twiddling  the	IPv4  address.	 (This
       value may not be unique.)

SEE ALSO
       hostid(1), gethostbyname(3)

COLOPHON
       This  page  is  part of release 3.05 of the Linux man-pages project.  A
       description of the project, and information about reporting  bugs,  can
       be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.



Linux				  2007-07-26			  GETHOSTID(2)