Getting serial number via server

Hi all,

Im trying to get the hard drive serial number off users pc that are running the program via a server, I am getting the correct serial number when i run the program off individual pc's but as soon as it is run the program through the server it only returns the servers hard drive serial.

Any idea's on how to get the users serial number while they are running the program through the server?

Here is my current code:

public String getHDDSerialNumber()
{
	String execCommand = new ReadConfigSessionBean().fetchConfigProperty("main", "hdd.serial");
	if (execCommand.equalsIgnoreCase("default"))
	{
		String osName = System.getProperty("os.name");
		if(osName.startsWith("Windows"))
		{
			return getHDDSerialNumberForWindows();
		}
		else if(osName.startsWith("Linux"))
		{
			return getHDDSerialNumberForLinux();
		}
	}
}

private String getHDDSerialNumberForWindows()
{
	try
	{
		File file = File.createTempFile("getCode",".vbs");
		file.deleteOnExit();
		FileWriter fw = new java.io.FileWriter(file);
			
		String vbs = "Set objFSO = CreateObject(\"Scripting.FileSystemObject\")\n"
			+"Set colDrives = objFSO.Drives\n"
			+"Set objDrive = colDrives.item(\"" + "C" + "\")\n"
			+"Wscript.Echo objDrive.SerialNumber";
		fw.write(vbs);
		fw.close();
		String command = "cscript //NoLogo " + file.getPath();
		if (externalExec(command) == 0)
		{
			return returnString;
		}
		else
		{
			return "Error : Error in externalExec";
		}
	}
	catch (Exception e)
	{
		e.printStackTrace();
	}
	return "Error : Error in externalExec";
}

private String getHDDSerialNumberForLinux()
{
	String command = "hdparm -i /dev/hda";
	if (externalExec(command) == 0)
	{
		if (!returnString.equals(""))
		{
			return returnString.substring(returnString.indexOf("SerialNo=")+9, returnString.indexOf("Config="));
		}
		return "Error : Error in externalExec";
	}
	else
	{
		command = "sdparm --quiet --inquiry --page=sn /dev/sda";
		if (externalExec(command) == 0)
		{
			if (!returnString.equals(""))
			{
				return returnString.substring(returnString.lastIndexOf(" ") + 1);
			}
			return "Error : Error in externalExec";
		}
		else
		{
			return "Error : Error in externalExec";
		}
	}
}

Thanks

What do you mean exactly by "running the program through the server"; is it a web application, where the user uses it via his or her web browser? If so, then is it a Java applet running in the browser, or an HTML / JavaScript web app? Or is it something different, a Java desktop application that talks to a server?

If it's a web application, this kind of thing is (almost) impossible, since web apps running in a user's browser have lots of security restrictions, and cannot access the user's local file system and hardware directly.

A jar put on the server and the clients run the program through the server on the browser as an applet, the applet calls the main class --> so everything is written in normal java - not servlets/jsp.

Any ideas thanks?

Thanks guys, it was a really stupid mistake i made, i called it from the server side instead of the client side, the method works perfectly. Sorry & thanks.