Hi everybody,

I'd like to know whether the Ultra Enterprise 450 and the Ultra 2
can use the same CPUs! The reason is that a 450 is running for the
single reason of acting as a hardware dongle (CPU ID) for a license
server, and I'd like to put the CPU into a Ultra 2.

Thanks for any help!

Michael
--

-------------------------------------------------------------
Dipl. Phys. Michael Zacherle zacherle@szs.uni-karlsruhe.de
Studienzentrum für Sehgeschädigte, Universität Karlsruhe (TH)
Engesserstraße 4, 76128 Karlsruhe, Germany
Tel.: (+49) 721/608-2760 Fax: (+49) 721/608-2020
-------------------------------------------------------------

Michael Zacherle wrote:
> Hi everybody,
>
> I'd like to know whether the Ultra Enterprise 450 and the Ultra 2
> can use the same CPUs! The reason is that a 450 is running for the
> single reason of acting as a hardware dongle (CPU ID) for a license
> server, and I'd like to put the CPU into a Ultra 2.
>
> Thanks for any help!
>
> Michael

I don't know about moving the processors, but most license software
relies on the hostid, not the CPU. That is not too difficult to change.

Are you sure the software is looking at the CPU?

--
Dave K

http://www.southminster-branch-line.org.uk/

Please note my email address changes periodically to avoid spam.
It is always of the form: month-year@domain. Hitting reply will work
for a couple of months only. Later set it manually. The month is
always written in 3 letters (e.g. Jan, not January etc)

"Dave (from the UK)" <see-my-signature@southminster-branch-line.org.uk> wrote:
> Michael Zacherle wrote:
>> Hi everybody,
>>
>> I'd like to know whether the Ultra Enterprise 450 and the Ultra 2
>> can use the same CPUs! The reason is that a 450 is running for the
>> single reason of acting as a hardware dongle (CPU ID) for a license
>> server, and I'd like to put the CPU into a Ultra 2.
>
> I don't know about moving the processors, but most license software
> relies on the hostid, not the CPU. That is not too difficult to change.
>
> Are you sure the software is looking at the CPU?

That's what the system administrator told me. As he is responsible for
quite a few Suns I'm pretty sure that he knows what he's talking about.
I had to change the hostid of some of my Sparc 20's as the NVRAM lost
its content...

Bye

Michael
--

-------------------------------------------------------------
Dipl. Phys. Michael Zacherle zacherle@szs.uni-karlsruhe.de
Studienzentrum für Sehgeschädigte, Universität Karlsruhe (TH)
Engesserstraße 4, 76128 Karlsruhe, Germany
Tel.: (+49) 721/608-2760 Fax: (+49) 721/608-2020
-------------------------------------------------------------

Michael Zacherle <zacherle@szs.uni-karlsruhe.de> wrote:
> "Dave (from the UK)" <see-my-signature@southminster-branch-line.org.uk> wrote:
>> Michael Zacherle wrote:
>>> Hi everybody,
>>>
>>> I'd like to know whether the Ultra Enterprise 450 and the Ultra 2
>>> can use the same CPUs! The reason is that a 450 is running for the
>>> single reason of acting as a hardware dongle (CPU ID) for a license
>>> server, and I'd like to put the CPU into a Ultra 2.
>>
>> I don't know about moving the processors, but most license software
>> relies on the hostid, not the CPU. That is not too difficult to change.
>>
>> Are you sure the software is looking at the CPU?
>
> That's what the system administrator told me. As he is responsible for
> quite a few Suns I'm pretty sure that he knows what he's talking about.
> I had to change the hostid of some of my Sparc 20's as the NVRAM lost
> its content...
>
> Bye
>
> Michael

That is certainly not the usual method on Sparcs, especially not with
FlexLM.

chicken 21% ./lmhostid -h
lmhostid - Copyright (c) 1989-2005 Macrovision Europe Ltd. and/or
Macrovision Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
Unknown argument: -h
usage: lmhostid [-ether|-internet|-user|-display|-n|
-hostname|-hostdomain|-string|-long]

You can use the MAC address, the IP address, the host name, the user name,
or the domain name.

If it is the IP address you can obviously re-assign that. If it is the MAC
address then that would require a play with the NVRAM. Still, there are
other license management systems than FlexLM.

--
Dr Tristram J. Scott
Energy Consultant

Tristram Scott wrote:
> Michael Zacherle <zacherle@szs.uni-karlsruhe.de> wrote:
>
>>"Dave (from the UK)" <see-my-signature@southminster-branch-line.org.uk> wrote:
>>
>>>Michael Zacherle wrote:
>>>
>>>>Hi everybody,
>>>>
>>>>I'd like to know whether the Ultra Enterprise 450 and the Ultra 2
>>>>can use the same CPUs! The reason is that a 450 is running for the
>>>>single reason of acting as a hardware dongle (CPU ID) for a license
>>>>server, and I'd like to put the CPU into a Ultra 2.

Have you thought of asking the vendor if you can move it to another
machine?

I'm not sure if there are any legal issues with preventing you from
moving to a later platform. I guess it depends on what country you are in.

Does the US not have anit-trust regulations? M$ come unstuck a few times
in Europe, for example by insisting you can't transfer Winblows to a new
owner of a PC.

I'm not aware of any specific cases of moving software to newer
platforms, but it would not surprise me if a company would not be
breaking some law or the other if they prevent this in reasonable
circumstances.

>>>I don't know about moving the processors, but most license software
>>>relies on the hostid, not the CPU. That is not too difficult to change.

<snip>

> That is certainly not the usual method on Sparcs, especially not with
> FlexLM.

I have a couple of bits of software on this box that were controlled by
FlexLM and both use the hostid. All those I have on other systems do so
too, making it irrelevant what uname prints.

Another bit of software uses some other techniqe I would admit.

> chicken 21% ./lmhostid -h
> lmhostid - Copyright (c) 1989-2005 Macrovision Europe Ltd. and/or
> Macrovision Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
> Unknown argument: -h
> usage: lmhostid [-ether|-internet|-user|-display|-n|
> -hostname|-hostdomain|-string|-long]
>
> You can use the MAC address, the IP address, the host name, the user name,
> or the domain name.


> If it is the IP address you can obviously re-assign that. If it is the MAC
> address then that would require a play with the NVRAM. Still, there are
> other license management systems than FlexLM.

Are there any you know of, around the days of the Ultra 450, that grab
something from the CPU ?

As far as I know there is no 'cpuid' like there are on some Intel
processors, although you can read the speed, type and mask, so I guess
you could potentially make something that defeats all but the more
determined.

This program is quite interesting.

http://www.bstern.org/libuname/

It spoofs uname by pre-loading a library. However, I don't think it
would be hard to bypass that.
--
Dave K

http://www.southminster-branch-line.org.uk/

Please note my email address changes periodically to avoid spam.
It is always of the form: month-year@domain. Hitting reply will work
for a couple of months only. Later set it manually. The month is
always written in 3 letters (e.g. Jan, not January etc)

Michael Zacherle <zacherle@szs.uni-karlsruhe.de> writes:

>> Are you sure the software is looking at the CPU?

>That's what the system administrator told me. As he is responsible for
>quite a few Suns I'm pretty sure that he knows what he's talking about.
>I had to change the hostid of some of my Sparc 20's as the NVRAM lost
>its content...

There's no way to get the CPU id; so this must be a miscomunication
of sorts.

Casper
--
Expressed in this posting are my opinions. They are in no way related
to opinions held by my employer, Sun Microsystems.
Statements on Sun products included here are not gospel and may
be fiction rather than truth.

Michael Zacherle wrote:

> Hi everybody,
>
> I'd like to know whether the Ultra Enterprise 450 and the Ultra 2
> can use the same CPUs! The reason is that a 450 is running for the
> single reason of acting as a hardware dongle (CPU ID) for a license
> server, and I'd like to put the CPU into a Ultra 2.
>
> Thanks for any help!
>
> Michael

The thread has drifted, but I'm still interested in an answer to the
original question.

Specifically, X1194A UltraSPARC II 400MHz CPU appears to carry two part
numbers, 501-5237 and 501-5445.

What's the difference? Are both Ultra 2 compatible?

Sunny