[Pkg-zfsonlinux-devel] Comparing the Debian and Ubuntu version of spl-linux

[Petter Reinholdtsen]

[Petter Reinholdtsen]
> But it is unclear from the changelog why we integreated the hostid code.
> What is it good for?  Why have we not needed it before?

Another and related question.  Is it really a good idea to store the
current value returned by gethostid() in /etc/hostid?  The value is
derived from the current IP address via the current hostname according
to the gethostid() manual page, and that mean it will be the same across
many machines behind NAT or otherwise on a private IP range commonly
used on home routers (like 192.168.*).

Perhaps it is better to pick a random number?  I see the various
solutions was discussed in
<URL: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=595790 > in
2013, with the last message being Darik Horn explaining he fail to see
the need to make gethostid() return a fairly unique value.  I disagree,
as I have often had the need to uniquely identify Linux installations.
Perhaps time to revitalize the discussion?

-- 
Happy hacking
Petter Reinholdtsen