SMBIOS(1M)SMBIOS(1M)NAMEsmbios - display the contents of a System Management BIOS image
SYNOPSISsmbios [-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 speci‐
fied, smbios writes a copy of the SMBIOS image to the specified file.
smbios can then be applied to the resulting file to display its con‐
tent.
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 struc‐
ture.
-t type
Display only those structures whose type matches the speci‐
fied 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 com‐
puted.
-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 struc‐
tures.
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(5) 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 ALSOprtdiag(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 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.
Aug 31, 2005 SMBIOS(1M)
