hostid ?

["Werner Klaus" <klaus crl go jp>]

Hi folks,

I just was going through the linux user commands in the "linux in a
nutshell" 2nd ed. book (which is a great book by the way) and encountered
some contradictions with the command "hostid" .
In the book it says:
hostid [-v] [id] prints the ID number of the host. By default, the
hexadecimal value is printed. With the -v option, the decimal value is
printed, followed by the hexadecimal value in parentheses. The super-user
may set the host ID by providing its decimal value.

Now, I tried the -v option but on my RedHat 6.1 system but I only get the
following error message
hostid: too many arguments
Also, as super-user I cannot figure out how to set the host ID.
In the manual pages the meaning of the -v option is not mentioned at all,
but appears in the SYNOPSIS line.

What is wrong ? How can I set the hostid ? Any suggestions would be
appreciated. Thanks in advance

Werner CRL, Japan