SMBIOS(8) Maintenance Commands and Procedures SMBIOS(8)

NAME

smbios - display the contents of a System Management BIOS image

SYNOPSIS

smbios [-BeOsx] [-i id] [-t type] [-w file] [file]

DESCRIPTION

The smbios utility displays the contents of the System Management
BIOS (SMBIOS) image exported by the current system or stored in a
file. SMBIOS is an industry-standard mechanism for low-level system
software to export hardware configuration information to higher-level
system management software. The SMBIOS data format itself is defined
by the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF). Refer to
http://www.dmtf.org for more information about SMBIOS and to obtain a
copy of the SMBIOS specification and implementation guidelines.


The SMBIOS image consists of a table of structures, each describing
some aspect of the system software or hardware configuration. By
default, smbios displays the entire contents of the current SMBIOS
image. If the -s option is specified, smbios displays a summary of
the structures that are present in the image. If the -w option is
specified, smbios writes a copy of the SMBIOS image to the specified
file. smbios can then be applied to the resulting file to display its
content.


smbios attempts to display each structure and its content in a human-
readable fashion. If smbios does not recognize a structure's type or
content, the raw hexadecimal data for the structure is displayed.

OPTIONS

The following options are supported:

-B
Disable header validation for broken BIOSes.

By default, smbios attempts to validate the SMBIOS header
by verifying the anchor strings, header checksums, and
version number. This option might be necessary when a BIOS
has a non-compliant header.


-e
Display the contents of the SMBIOS entry point rather
than the contents of the SMBIOS structure table.


-i id
Display only the specified structure, named by its integer
id.


-O
Display obsolete structure types.

By default, smbios elides output for structures whose type
is marked as obsolete in the DMTF SMBIOS specification.


-s
Display only a summary listing of the structure
identifiers and types, instead of the content of each
selected structure.


-t type
Display only those structures whose type matches the
specified integer type, as defined the DMTF SMBIOS
specification.


-w file
Write a copy of the SMBIOS image to the specified file and
exit.

The SMBIOS entry point is written to the start of the file
with its structure table address set to the file offset of
the structure table, and a new entry point checksum is
computed.


-x
Display raw hexadecimal data for the selected structures
in addition to human-readable output.

By default, hexadecimal data is only displayed if smbios
cannot display human-readable output for the selected
structures.

OPERANDS

The following operands are supported:

file
Specifies an alternate SMBIOS image to display instead of the
current system's SMBIOS image.

EXIT STATUS

The following exit values are returned:

0
Successful completion. All structures in the SMBIOS image were
examined successfully.


1
A fatal error occurred, such as failure to open the specified
file or device, or corruption in the image.


2
Invalid command-line options were specified.

FILES

/dev/smbios
Kernel SMBIOS image device. This device special file
is used to export a snapshot of the current system
SMBIOS image.

ATTRIBUTES

See attributes(7) for descriptions of the following attributes:


+--------------------+-----------------+
| ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE |
+--------------------+-----------------+
|Interface Stability | See below. |
+--------------------+-----------------+


The command-line options are Evolving. The human-readable output is
Unstable.

SEE ALSO

smbios(4D), attributes(7), prtdiag(8)


System Management BIOS Reference Specification (see
http://www.dmtf.org)

NOTES

The implementation of a System Management BIOS image is entirely at
the discretion of the system and BIOS vendors. Not all systems export
an SMBIOS. The SMBIOS structure content varies widely between
systems and BIOS vendors and frequently does not comply with the
guidelines included in the specification. Some structure fields
might not be filled in by the BIOS at all, and others might be filled
inwith non-conforming values.

August 31, 2005 SMBIOS(8)