Just a idea

You can get the mac by telnet "get ip", the serial number from the label or coding and unique id from coding. I think you can get all or some of this information from the master's webserver. I tried to check but sometimes the webserver just won't load and even when it does it's generally extremely slow which is insane for a server on your local 10/100 network.

The serial number is supposed to return a 16 character string but on my system it spits out a 12 char string with 4 nulls appended to the end. These nulls do weird things and in the below send_string 0's everything after the variable containing the S/N wouldn't print while the nulls were in the string and when doing a comparison if VAR = SerialNumber didn't match because of the nulls. It took me a while to figure out they were there and compared the returned string length to the actuall number of visible characters.

I check another system and that returned a 16 chars string with 15 alpha/numeric chars and 1 null.

I decided it would be easier to install the code below in all my systems so when I want to retrieve the serial number or unique ID I can remotely connect to the system and in NS2 debug set the global var nSysDeBug_Numbers to 1 and watch for the numbers in diagnostics.

Not that I ever plan on buying modules but if I do I can get the serial number with out it being a major under taking to get the serial number should the seller of the module require it.

I should probably add a routine to test for non printing chars and remove anything that is not alpha/numeric.

When doing comparisons it's more reliable to do:
if(find_string(SN_Var,"'2105X5040209'",1)) then if(SN_Var == '2105X5040209'). The find_string allows non printing chars that may get by.

// in DEFINE_PROGRAM or FeedBack Time_Line. I prefer the time line.
if(nSysDeBug_Numbers)
	  {
	  STACK_VAR CHAR cSerialNum[16] ;
	  STACK_VAR CHAR cUniqueID[6] ;
	  STACK_VAR CHAR cTempString[16] ;
	 
	  GET_SERIAL_NUMBER(0,cSerialNum) ;//Returns the 16-character serial number of the specified device.
	  //Found 4 nulls at end of string "DECIMAL 0", why? supposed to return 16 chars.  Early SN's ??
	  cSerialNum = UPPER_STRING(LEFT_STRING(cSerialNum,12)) ;//remove 4 nulls at end of string!!
	  cUniqueID = GET_UNIQUE_ID() ;
	  for(i = 1 ; i <= 6 ; i ++)
	       {
	       if(length_string(cTempString))
		    {
		    cTempString = "cTempString,',',itohex(get_buffer_char(cUniqueID))" ;
		    }
	       else
		    {
		    cTempString = "itohex(get_buffer_char(cUniqueID))" ;
		    }
	       }
	  SEND_STRING 0,"'Masters Serial Number: "',cSerialNum,'" Line-<',ITOA(__LINE__),'>',crlf" ;
	  SEND_STRING 0,"'Masters Unique ID (HEX Values): "',cTempString,'" Line-<',ITOA(__LINE__),'>',crlf" ;
     	  nSysDeBug_Numbers = 0 ;
	  }

Diagnostics:
Line    271 :: Masters Serial Number: "2105X5040209" Line-<2191>$0D$0A - 16:19:06
Line    272 :: Masters Unique ID (HEX Values): "0,5,57,95,7,1" Line-<2192>$0D$0A - 16:19:06

GSLogic wrote:

Some of the older NIs have some strange serial numbers.

The master I'm using (NI4000) is fairly old. When I tried to increase Duet Momory I was given the option of between 2-8M most newer system allow up to 32M. If I do increase it above 2M (the current default setting) the master stops working.