Get a unique computer ID in python on windows and linux

Question

Hi, I'd like to get an id unique to a computer with Python on Windows and Linux. It could be the CPU ID, the motherboard serial, ... or anything else.

I looked at several modules (pycpuid, psi, ...) without luck.

Any idea on how to do that ?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

UUID -Universally Unique Identifier

Python uuid module

[RFC 4122] A Universally Unique IDentifier (UUID) URN Namespace

Answer 2

How about using the MAC address as unique id?

The discussion here http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1750803/obtain-mac-address-from-devices-using-python shows how to obtain the MAC address

Answer 3

I don't think there is a reliable, cross platform, way to do this. I know of one network device that changes its MAC address as a form of hardware error reporting, and there are a million other ways this could fail.

The only reliable solution is for your application to assign a unique key to each machine. Yes it can be spoofed, but you don't have to worry about it completely breaking. If you are worried about spoofing you can apply some sort of heuristic (like a change in mac address) to try and determine if the key has been moved.

UPDATE: You can use bacterial fingerprinting.

Answer 4

There seems to be no direct "python" way of doing this. On modern PC hardware, there usually is an UUID stored in the BIOS - on Linux there is a command line utility dmidecode that can read this; example from my desktop:

System Information
        Manufacturer: Dell Inc.
        Product Name: OptiPlex 755                 
        Version: Not Specified
        Serial Number: 5Y8YF3J
        UUID: 44454C4C-5900-1038-8059-B5C04F46334A
        Wake-up Type: Power Switch
        SKU Number: Not Specified
        Family: Not Specified

The problem with MAC addresses is that usually you can easily change them programmatically (at least if you run the OS in a VM)

On Windows, you can use this C API

Answer 5

for Windows you need DmiDecode for Windows (link) :

subprocess.Popen('dmidecode.exe -s system-uuid'.split())

for Linux (non root):

subprocess.Popen('hal-get-property --udi /org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/computer --key system.hardware.uuid'.split())

Answer 6

Or if you don't want to use subprocess, (It's slow) use ctypes. This is for Linux non root.

import ctypes
from ctypes.util import find_library
from ctypes import Structure

class DBusError(Structure):
    _fields_ = [("name", ctypes.c_char_p),
                ("message", ctypes.c_char_p),
                ("dummy1", ctypes.c_int),
                ("dummy2", ctypes.c_int),
                ("dummy3", ctypes.c_int),
                ("dummy4", ctypes.c_int),
                ("dummy5", ctypes.c_int),
                ("padding1", ctypes.c_void_p),]


class HardwareUuid(object):

    def __init__(self, dbus_error=DBusError):
        self._hal = ctypes.cdll.LoadLibrary(find_library('hal'))
        self._ctx = self._hal.libhal_ctx_new()
        self._dbus_error = dbus_error()
        self._hal.dbus_error_init(ctypes.byref(self._dbus_error))
        self._conn = self._hal.dbus_bus_get(ctypes.c_int(1),
                                            ctypes.byref(self._dbus_error))
        self._hal.libhal_ctx_set_dbus_connection(self._ctx, self._conn)
        self._uuid_ = None

    def __call__(self):
        return self._uuid

    @property
    def _uuid(self):
        if not self._uuid_:
            udi = ctypes.c_char_p("/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/computer")
            key = ctypes.c_char_p("system.hardware.uuid")
            self._hal.libhal_device_get_property_string.restype = \
                                                            ctypes.c_char_p
            self._uuid_ = self._hal.libhal_device_get_property_string(
                                self._ctx, udi, key, self._dbus_error)
        return self._uuid_

You can use this like:

get_uuid = HardwareUuid()
print get_uuid()