Unique computer ID

27 Responses

1. 
   Aurélien June 23, 2011 at 08:24 Reply

   To limit the use of my softwares , I ask end-users the hostname of their machines or their login

   For the login for example I use the following piece of code which is cross-platform

   username = getenv('-- USERNAME'); if isempty(username) str = '!whoami'; username = deblank(evalc(str)); end

   username = getenv('-- USERNAME'); if isempty(username) str = '!whoami'; username = deblank(evalc(str)); end

   Then I compare the username string with what I expect to get.

   Aurélien

2. 
   Etienne Balmes June 23, 2011 at 13:36 Reply

   You can use flexlm which always ships with MATLAB. Look for

   !lmhostid -w

   !lmhostid -w

   or:

   !lmutil hostid

   !lmutil hostid

• 
  Donn Shull June 25, 2011 at 14:12 Reply

  Keep in mind Yair’s note that using the license manager does not work in deployed applications and may not give reliable results in MATLAB network served instances.
  The form that you can use in a function is:

  [status, value] = system('lmutil lmhostid -n')

  [status, value] = system('lmutil lmhostid -n')

3. 
   Jan Simon June 26, 2011 at 19:11 Reply

   The harddisk ID and the creation date of the drive containing the OS are most likely unique.
   Under Windows (XP, and newer?) POWERCFG replies a list, which contains the hardware IDs of all devices, which have been connected in the past:

   !powercfg /DEVICEQUERY all_devices_verbose

   !powercfg /DEVICEQUERY all_devices_verbose

   It is hard to parse the replied list, e.g. to find a specific ID of the harddisk. But if you know a ID, e.g. the vendor ID of an USB-stick, it is easy to check if this string appears anywhere in the list.

   Kind regards, Jan

4. 
   Nathan July 14, 2011 at 10:51 Reply

   I don’t know how portable it is, but on Windows I use

   getHostName(java.net.InetAddress.getLocalHost());

   getHostName(java.net.InetAddress.getLocalHost());

   BTW, great site!
   Nathan

• 
  Yair Altman July 14, 2011 at 11:47 Reply

  @Nathan – thanks for the compliment.

  Your method is actually portable (cross-platform), since it is based on generic plain-vanilla Java. Unfortunately, I’m afraid it is not very unique since it just returns the computer name, which is non-unique by definition. By the way, on Windows you can use the following much simpler method to get this computer name:

  getenv('computername')

  getenv('computername')

5. 
   Jan Simon July 20, 2011 at 10:02 Reply

   A small change for your Java approach:
   Instead of

   addrStr = dec2hex(int16(addr)+128); sid = [sid, '.', reshape(addrStr,1,2*length(addr))];

   addrStr = dec2hex(int16(addr)+128); sid = [sid, '.', reshape(addrStr,1,2*length(addr))];

   this might be nicer:

   sid = [sid, '.', sprintf('%.2X', typecast(addr, 'uint8'))];

   sid = [sid, '.', sprintf('%.2X', typecast(addr, 'uint8'))];

• 
  Yair Altman July 20, 2011 at 12:06 Reply

  @Jan – I humbly stand corrected 🙂

6. 
   Matthias September 20, 2011 at 15:21 Reply

   Hi,

   for licensing I always use the MAC address of (one of) the network controllers. This address is absolutley unique for each network device worldwide.

   The only way to access this I know of is using C/C++ compiled to a *.dll which can then be called from MATLAB using calllib

   If interested I can post the code from the function to access the device.

   And yes, this is a great site, learned a lot about Java in MATLAB and using lots of it.
   Keep up Yair!

   Matthias

• 
  Yair Altman September 20, 2011 at 15:35 Reply

  @Matthias – thanks 🙂 The code I posted above does exactly what you say, specifying the MAC addresses of all the computer’s network controllers. Please take a look – it’s actually quite simple and does not require any DLL, so it works on both Windows and non-Windows platforms.

7. 
   Jayveer November 16, 2011 at 01:24 Reply

   switch computer('arch') case {'maci','maci64'} [~,a]=system('ifconfig'); c=strfind(a,'en0');if ~isempty(c),a=a(c:end);end c=strfind(a,'en1');if ~isempty(c),a=a(1:c-1);end % find the mac address b=strfind(a,'ether'); mac_add=a(1,b(1)+6:b(1)+22); case {'win32','win64'} [~,a]=system('getmac');b=strfind(a,'='); mac_add=a(b(end):b(end)+19); case {'glnx86','glnxa64'} [~,a]=system('ifconfig');b=strfind(a,'Ether'); mac_add=a(1,b(1)+17:b(1)+33); otherwise,mac_add=[]; end

   switch computer('arch') case {'maci','maci64'} [~,a]=system('ifconfig'); c=strfind(a,'en0');if ~isempty(c),a=a(c:end);end c=strfind(a,'en1');if ~isempty(c),a=a(1:c-1);end % find the mac address b=strfind(a,'ether'); mac_add=a(1,b(1)+6:b(1)+22); case {'win32','win64'} [~,a]=system('getmac');b=strfind(a,'='); mac_add=a(b(end):b(end)+19); case {'glnx86','glnxa64'} [~,a]=system('ifconfig');b=strfind(a,'Ether'); mac_add=a(1,b(1)+17:b(1)+33); otherwise,mac_add=[]; end

• 
  Sami March 1, 2013 at 04:10 Reply

  Thanks for the code, it’s very helpful, however in the {‘win32′,’win64’} i had to add “+1” to get the right MAC address. without the preceding “=” :

  mac_add = a(b(end)+1:b(end)+19);

  mac_add = a(b(end)+1:b(end)+19);

• 
  Xiangrui Li May 1, 2017 at 23:06 Reply

  Here is my practice for regexp. For all OS, always take the first mac_add pattern in the string output.

  if ispc [~, a] = system('getmac'); mac_add = regexp(a, '([0-9A-F]{2}-){5}[0-9A-F]{2}', 'match', 'once'); elseif isunix % OSX and Linux [~, a] = system('ifconfig'); mac_add = regexp(a, '([0-9a-f]{2}:){5}[0-9a-f]{2}', 'match', 'once'); else mac_add = []; end

  if ispc [~, a] = system('getmac'); mac_add = regexp(a, '([0-9A-F]{2}-){5}[0-9A-F]{2}', 'match', 'once'); elseif isunix % OSX and Linux [~, a] = system('ifconfig'); mac_add = regexp(a, '([0-9a-f]{2}:){5}[0-9a-f]{2}', 'match', 'once'); else mac_add = []; end

8. 
   itrentals April 30, 2012 at 05:46 Reply

   This is a really good guide, especially for those developing software (like you say) who are fearful that it will get copied.

9. 
   damayi May 22, 2012 at 20:43 Reply

   SID is not an absolutely secure way to protect your license.
   There are many software tool which can modify computer sid, such as NewSid software.

10. 
    Priti February 20, 2013 at 07:33 Reply

    really helpful

11. 
    thomas February 20, 2014 at 08:50 Reply

    How unique is SID? Can be there 2 identical SIDs in the world?

• 
  Yair Altman February 20, 2014 at 09:23 Reply

  Thomas – of course: any computer-generated id can be spoofed and hacked. You can never fully protect yourself from this. But if you’re looking at normal legal behavior, then it should be unique for any practical purposes.

• 
  thomas February 20, 2014 at 09:26

  @Yair – sorry, I meant not SID but that second method, where sid = .89ECC872C85C.8AFE928FEDB4.8262278A1CCA.899919B50FC9

  Is it the MAC address? Because MAC address has 12 digits. My SID (this 48 digits long) is different from my MAC. Thanks.

• 
  Yair Altman February 20, 2014 at 09:29

  @Thomas – in this case you have 4 separate MAC addresses, from 4 separate network devices. Run the following in your Matlab command prompt to see the list (look at the “Physical Address” rows):

  system('ipconfig /all')

  system('ipconfig /all')

  This again is only unique if the user does not fool around with the MACs…

• 
  thomas February 20, 2014 at 09:40 Reply

  Yes, they are different, this is why i am confused a bit. The SID method gives .D6CDDF05903C.8888888600000000.8888888600000000.8888888600000000
  IPconfig says:
  50-E5-49-50-53-7A (this is the ethernet adapter)
  00-00-00-00-00-00-00-E0
  00-00-00-00-00-00-00-E0
  00-00-00-00-00-00-00-E0

• 
  Yair Altman February 20, 2014 at 09:56

  @Thomas – it’s simply a different representation of the data. Here’s an implementation that should return more legible results:

  ni = java.net.NetworkInterface.getNetworkInterfaces; macStrs = {}; while ni.hasMoreElements macAddr = ni.nextElement.getHardwareAddress; if ~isempty(macAddr) macAddrStr = ['.' sprintf('%02X',mod(int16(macAddr),256))]; macStrs{end+1} = macAddrStr; %#ok end end macStrs = sort(unique(macStrs)); sid = [macStrs{:}];

  ni = java.net.NetworkInterface.getNetworkInterfaces; macStrs = {}; while ni.hasMoreElements macAddr = ni.nextElement.getHardwareAddress; if ~isempty(macAddr) macAddrStr = ['.' sprintf('%02X',mod(int16(macAddr),256))]; macStrs{end+1} = macAddrStr; %#ok end end macStrs = sort(unique(macStrs)); sid = [macStrs{:}];

• 
  thomas February 20, 2014 at 10:09 Reply

  oh, i see.. the new method indeed gives .00000000000000E0.50E54950537A 🙂

  thank you for your clarification. could you please delete my mac addresses, they were not intended to go public 🙂

• 
  Yair Altman February 20, 2014 at 10:20

  Next time don’t post on a public blog something that you don’t want to appear publicly!

12. 
    Jeff E Mandel MD MS October 31, 2016 at 15:41 Reply

    Newer Macs have a hardware UUID. Note that Apple won’t allow a program that uses this in the App Store, but this probably won’t affect too many people writing deployed applications. Here is a little routine that accesses the system profile using the system_profiler command.

    function profile = getMacProfile % Retrieves all of the information from the OSX system profile and returns % it in a structure, replacing spaces with underscores in the names and % removing the attributes in parentheses.   [~,out]=system('system_profiler SPHardwareDataType'); theLines = splitlines(out); for i = 1:length(theLines) if ~isempty(theLines{i}) try c=strsplit(theLines{i},': '); if length(c) == 2 d=strip(c{1}); e=regexprep(d,' (.*)',''); tag =strrep(e, ' ','_'); profile.(tag) = c{2}; end catch % In case Apple comes up with a new entry disp(theLines{i}); end end end

    function profile = getMacProfile % Retrieves all of the information from the OSX system profile and returns % it in a structure, replacing spaces with underscores in the names and % removing the attributes in parentheses. [~,out]=system('system_profiler SPHardwareDataType'); theLines = splitlines(out); for i = 1:length(theLines) if ~isempty(theLines{i}) try c=strsplit(theLines{i},': '); if length(c) == 2 d=strip(c{1}); e=regexprep(d,' (.*)',''); tag =strrep(e, ' ','_'); profile.(tag) = c{2}; end catch % In case Apple comes up with a new entry disp(theLines{i}); end end end

    The UDID (unique device ID) is returned in profile.Hardware_UUID. This is probably more reliable than the MAC address of EN0.

13. 
    Mitchell June 13, 2022 at 03:58 Reply

    Great post! I’m not very familiar with the network interfaces being referenced here, but it seems like the java-based cross-platform method concatenates all network interfaces. Does that mean that the SID returned by this method will change if a network interface is added or removed? Is it even possible to add or remove this type of network interface? Thanks!

• 
  Yair Altman June 13, 2022 at 12:38 Reply

  @Mitchell – in most cases the user wants a single string identifier for the computer, that uniquely identifies it with a distinct fingerprint that is different from any other computer. The network interface (MAC) addresses are reported by the operating system, and naturally change when you add or remove a network card or adapter. It is up to you to decide which of the MAC addresses should be included in the fingerprint: if you include all of them, it certainly makes your fingerprint unique, but might include addresses that change frequently (e.g. VPN, WiFi, or virtual interfaces). On the other hand, if you ignore too many interfaces, your SID might be easier to spoof. Different operating systems have different ways of handling network interface MAC addresses, and you should consider this as well. For example, Windows and Linux addresses are pretty stable, but MacOS constantly changes the addresses when you connect/disconnect a network interface. MacOS also changes the computer’s hostname automatically, without any user approval, which is a PITA. In short, having a stable, unique SID that is less prone to spoofing requires some thought. If you need my assistance with this, please contact me privately (altmany at gmail).

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