hostid

[James P. Kiely]

On all of the systems I have looked, "hostid" is not being set in /etc/rc.local.
What is the purpose of the ``hostid(1)'' and  ``{g,s}ethostid(2)'' calls?
The manual page for ``hostid(1)'' states that this is "... normally set to
the host's Internet address ... by giving a hexadecimal argument ...".
How do you convert an Internet address with multiple decimal points
into a hexadecimal number (or an int for ``sethostid(2)'') ?
Is this obsoleted by ``hostname(1)'', ``{g,s}ethostname(2)'' ?
-- 
 
NAME:     James P. Kiely                USPS:   Lown Cardiovascular Laboratory
USENET:   ...!harvard!lownlab!kiely             Harvard School of Public Health
PHONE:    +1 617 732 1307                       665 Huntington Avenue
                                                Boston, MA 02115-9915