RPort
  • RPort Knowledge Base
  • 👀WHAT IS RPORT
    • Features and benefits of RPort
      • Full feature list
    • Screenshots
    • Release Notes
      • 1.1.2
      • 1.1.0
      • 1.0.5
      • 1.0.4
      • 1.0.3
      • 1.0.2
      • 1.0.1
  • 🚀GETTING STARTED
  • Install the RPort Server
    • Launch RPort in the cloud
    • Install on-premises
    • Install on Vultr
    • Install on Azure
    • Install on AWS EC2
    • Install on Digital Ocean
    • Install on Scaleway
    • Install on Google Compute
    • Install on Hetzner Cloud
    • Install RPort on any virgin cloud VM
    • Change the FQDN of the RPort server
    • Enable two factor authentication
      • Use push on mobile for 2FA
      • Use TOTP
  • Connecting Clients
  • Using the remote access
    • Creating tunnels
      • VNC via browser
      • VNC via VNC® Viewer from RealVNC®
      • RDP via Browser
    • Open SSH from the browser
    • Scp,sftp through a tunnel
  • Renaming and tagging of clients
  • Organize clients with groups
  • Activate the vault
  • Manage users and permissions
  • Video Courses
    • Installation Preparation
    • Install on Prem
    • Install on Cloud
    • Client installation
    • Remote Access
    • Network communication
  • 🗣️ NEED HELP?
    • Troubleshoot common problems
      • RPort Server not starting
      • Restart rport through a tunnel
      • Attributes file path not set
      • Recover lost passwords
      • Client is not connecting
      • Id is already in use
  • 🔦DIGGING DEEPER
    • Using the API
      • Create client credentials
    • RPort Technology Explained
      • RPort Security Model
    • Commands and Scripts
      • Executing commands
      • Executing scripts
      • Tacoscript
    • The scheduler
    • File copy and reception
    • Client Configuration Options
      • Supervision of OS updates
      • Script and command execution
    • Advanced client management
      • Install the RPort client manually
      • Uninstall the RPort client
    • Server Maintenance
      • Monitoring of RPortd
      • Updating RPort
      • Backing up the rport server
      • Renewing certificates
    • FAQ
      • How to use Cloudflare
    • High Availability
    • Install on macOS
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  • What is the "id" and why must it be unique?
  • What causes duplicate ids?
  • How to solve the issue?

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  1. 🗣️ NEED HELP?
  2. Troubleshoot common problems

Id is already in use

Solve connection errors caused by duplicated ids

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Last updated 1 year ago

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What is the "id" and why must it be unique?

All clients are identified by an id. During the client installation, the id is written to the rport.conf file. This id can be any string. Operating system create a worldwide unique id for each system during the installation process.

The rport pairing script takes the id of the operating system and inserts it to the rport.conf file.

On Linux the id is taken from /etc/machine-id or a hash of all mac addresses is created, if the machine-id file is missing.

On Windows the computer system UUID is used. Get-CimInstance -Class Win32_ComputerSystemProduct).UUID

Re-using existing identifiers creates a consistent view of your inventory. But you can use other identifiers if you want.

What causes duplicate ids?

Duplicate ids are almost always caused by system cloning. Either you have cloned a system with the rport client already installed, or after cloning, you have not created a new machine-id.

You will get an error like the below in the rport.log.

client: Connection error: client id "1234abc" is already in use

☝️ The problem is largely limited to Linux because Windows identifies it has been cloned, and a new UUID is created automatically.

How to solve the issue?

😬 Quick and dirty

You can edit the rport.conf with an editor and insert a randomly created UUID. Restart the client and it will connect flawlessly.

🧡 Properly

Having systems with duplicate machine-ids on a local network is not a good idea. It can cause other issues. First reset the machine id of the operating system, reboot and copy the new id from /etc/machine-id and insert it into the rport.conf.

📖 Reset machine id on Ubuntu 📖 Reset machine id on Debian 📖 Reset machine id on RHEL, CentOS, Rocky etc.

Starting with rport 0.6.0 the client can dynamically read the systemd id on start. That eliminates the need of copying /etc/machine-id to rport.conf. But it doesn't liberate you from the duty of creating unique machine ids on your network.

Id of the rport client