Question

I have to protect with a validation Key an application written in Java, the key should work only on a specified PC, so for example a machine ID serial number should be generated by the application based on a unique identifier (for example : hard disk serial, MainBoard serial and so on … ); then based on this unique identifier another program will generate a validation key.

I have already implemented a similar activation system on a .NET application generating Machine identifier, getting hardware serial numbers from WMI, How can i get this values in Java ? The solution should work independently on Windows, Linux and Mac Os X .

How can i retrieve a unique identifier of a machine in Java ? Is there some library out there, that allow to do it ?

Answer 1

The machines MAC address (or one of the machines MAC addresses) is a good candidate. It is unique and probably changes less often then other hardware identifiers. Here’s a code snippet:

• How to get MAC address of a host using java program