smbios(7D) Devices smbios(7D)NAME
smbios - System Management BIOS image
SYNOPSIS
/dev/smbios
DESCRIPTION
The smbios device is a character special file that provides access to a snapshot of the System Management BIOS (SMBIOS) image exported by
the current system. SMBIOS is an industry-standard mechanism that enables low-level system software to export hardware configuration infor-
mation to higher-level system management software. The SMBIOS data format is defined by the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF). For
more information on SMBIOS and to obtain a copy of the SMBIOS specification and implementation guidelines, refer to http://www.dmtf.org.
The SMBIOS image consists of a table of structures, each describing some aspect of the system software or hardware configuration. The con-
tent of the image varies widely by platform and BIOS vendor and may not exist on some systems. You can use the smbios(1M) utility to
inspect the contents of the SMBIOS image and copy it to a file.
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for a description of the following attributes:
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
|Availability |SUNWkvm.i |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
|Interface Stability |Stable |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
SEE ALSO prtdiag(1M), smbios(1M), attributes(5)
System Management BIOS Reference Specification, Version 2, Release 4 -- 2005
NOTES
The implementation of a System Management BIOS image is entirely at the discretion of the system and BIOS vendors. Not all systems export a
SMBIOS. The SMBIOS structure content varies widely between systems and BIOS vendors and frequently does not comply with the guidelines
included in the specification. For example, some structure fields may not be filled in by the BIOS, while others may be filled in with non-
conforming values.
SunOS 5.11 26 August 2005 smbios(7D)
Check Out this Related Man Page
smbios(1M) 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 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 struc-
ture 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(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE 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 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-con-
forming values.
SunOS 5.11 31 Aug 2005 smbios(1M)