Support Knowledge Base

Solution Number: 828
Title: Obtaining a Hostid for FLEXnet licensing
Platform: All Platforms
Applies to: All Products
Versions: 3.4, 3.5
Created: April 1, 2002
Last Modified: October 2, 2008
Categories: Installation
Keywords: flexnet hostid host id

Problem Description

How do I obtain the FLEXnet (formerly FLEXlm) Hostid?

Solution

For many license types in the COMSOL product family, your COMSOL sales representative will ask you for some information in order to create installation codes. COMSOL uses the FLEXnet licensing system to create installation codes using the hostid and server name and possibly more information about your system. The server name is the network name of the computer, which can be just a name, (e.g., bart), a fully qualified ip-name (bart.simpson.com) or an ip-number (130.243.43.3). The hostid is the physical hardware number of the Ethernet Network Interface Card (NIC). The hostid is sometimes called Ethernet address or MAC-address (Media Access Control address).

For platform-specific information on obtaining FLEXnet hostids, please see the table below.

Hardware PlatformHostid Type this command on the machine: Example
Windows ethernet address ipconfig /all (remove hyphens from Physical address 00-11-11-4C-C2-BB) See below 0011114CC2BB
Linux ethernet address /sbin/ifconfig eth0 (remove colons from HWaddr 00:40:05:16:E5:25) 00400516E525
SUN 32-bit Hostid hostid 170a3472
Mac OS X ethernet address See below 00039377F4AC

OBTAINING THE HOSTID ON WINDOWS

  • Click the Start button. On XP: Click Run, on Vista: put the insertion point in the Start Search field.
  • Type in cmd and press Return. The Command window will open.
  • Type in ipconfig /all and press Enter.
  • The FLEXnet hostid is the same as the "Physical Address".
  • The server name is the same as the "Host Name". If your network administrators prefer to use a fixed IP address for this particular machine, this IP Address could be optionally used in place of the Host Name.

Click to enlarge

Hostid for PCs with wireless adapters
If you plan to install on a PC with a wireless network adapter, you should report the physical address of both the wireless and the Ethernet adapter. If your sales representative asks you for the hard disk serial number instead of the hostid, type vol at the Windows command line prompt (see picture above). The output will look like
Volume Serial Number is 2C9F-5930. Please send this number to COMSOL.

OBTAINING THE HOSTID ON MAC OS X

  • Launch the application Network Utility found in the Applications/ Utilities folder.
  • Select the Info tab on the left.
  • Select Network Interface (en0) - this corresponds to your Ethernet card. Do not select Network Interface (fw0).
  • The Hostid is the Hardware Address, see below, with the colons removed.

    Click to enlarge
  • If you plan to install on a Macintosh with a wireless network adapter, please report the hardware address for both Network Interface (en0) and Network Interface (en1). These numbers should each consist of 12 characters.
  • To find the server name, open the application Terminal found in the Applications/Utilities folder.
  • Type "hostname" (no quotes). This is the current host name of the Mac. This may or may not correspond to the IP Address shown underneath the Hardware Address in the Network Utility, depending on where the Mac gets its IP address and hostname.
  • Optionally, the server name is equal to the IP Address that corresponds to the hostname found from the "hostname" command. Use the results of the "hostname" command and enter this host name into the "network address to ping" field under the Ping tab of the Network Utility. Press the Ping button, and you'll see the IP address in parentheses after the hostname you typed.

    Click to enlarge

Click on the image to see an enlarged version.

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