System Administration Commands                         smbios(1M)



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 sys-
     tem 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  con-
     tents  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.



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System Administration Commands                         smbios(1M)



     -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.





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System Administration Commands                         smbios(1M)



     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 spe-
                     cial  file  is  used to export a snapshot of
                     the current system SMBIOS image.


ATRIBUTES
     See attributes(5) for descriptions of the  following  attri-
     butes:



     
           ATRIBUTE TYPE               ATRIBUTE VALUE       
    
     Availability                 SUNWcsu                     
    
     Interface Stability          See below.                  
    



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

SEE ALSO
     prtdiag(1M), attributes(5), smbios(7D)


     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  con-
     tent varies widely between systems and BIOS vendors and fre-
     quently 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.







SunOS 5.11          Last change: 31 Aug 2005                    3