UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

uname -l

On our HPUX 11.0 boxes shows "two-user license" - with about 150 users.... we don't believe the output from uname.

sysdef does work.

HP sells licenses based on the number of users on a box. But they don't enforce the license via the login program if you connect via the network. Originally, everyone had an ascii terminal connected to one host or another. By signing on that directly connected box, you were counted against the license for that box. HP's lawyers, in their wisdom, decided that since you had already consumed one license by signing on your directly connected system, you should not consume another if you rlogined to another box. This left HP with a very lamely enforced license policy. This was discussed at length, but they decided this was better than erroreously not allowing someone to login.

But the idea is that every user of HP-UX actually is using a license somewhere. If you're not doing that, I *think* that you are breaking the HP-UX license agreement. But this is not my area of expertise.

npty may or may not be important. It depends on how you connected. Try this: "telnet localhost", sign on, and then run "pty". You will see the message "not a pty". Now run the command "tty". (I see /dev/pts/ta.) The pty program sorta told a fib. telnet is using a pty, but it's a STREAMS based pty. Originally, HP-UX only had BSD style pty's. They continue to exist and some programs use them. But the STREAMS based pty's are much better. The relevant kernel parameters:
npty controls the max number of BSD pty's.
nstrpty controls the max number of STREAMS based pty's.

And even when BSD pty's were the only kind, 100 BSD pty's did not guarantee 100 users. Programs like expect and script can allocate a pty as well.

And users need other kernel resources. There is a kernel parameter called maxusers which is used to scale these. maxusers is not displayed by sysdef. But you can view it with:
kmtune -q maxusers

Our company has "site" licensing so we are not in violation...

Ours does as well...

we have 4 K-series boxes and 3 V-series boxes with about 250-300 users on a really large SAN.