1CPUID(4) Linux Programmer's Manual CPUID(4)
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6 cpuid - x86 CPUID access device
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9 CPUID provides an interface for querying information about the x86 CPU.
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11 This device is accessed by lseek(2) or pread(2) to the appropriate
12 CPUID level and reading in chunks of 16 bytes. A larger read size
13 means multiple reads of consecutive levels.
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15 The lower 32 bits of the file position is used as the incoming %eax,
16 and the upper 32 bits of the file position as the incoming %ecx, the
17 latter is intended for "counting" eax levels like eax=4.
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19 This driver uses /dev/cpu/CPUNUM/cpuid, where CPUNUM is the minor num‐
20 ber, and on an SMP box will direct the access to CPU CPUNUM as listed
21 in /proc/cpuinfo.
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23 This file is protected so that it can be read only by the user root, or
24 members of the group root.
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27 The CPUID instruction can be directly executed by a program using in‐
28 line assembler. However this device allows convenient access to all
29 CPUs without changing process affinity.
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31 Most of the information in cpuid is reported by the kernel in cooked
32 form either in /proc/cpuinfo or through subdirectories in /sys/de‐
33 vices/system/cpu. Direct CPUID access through this device should only
34 be used in exceptional cases.
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36 The cpuid driver is not auto-loaded. On modular kernels you might need
37 to use the following command to load it explicitly before use:
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39 $ modprobe cpuid
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41 There is no support for CPUID functions that require additional input
42 registers.
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44 Very old x86 CPUs don't support CPUID.
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47 cpuid(1)
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49 Intel Corporation, Intel 64 and IA-32 Architectures Software Devel‐
50 oper's Manual Volume 2A: Instruction Set Reference, A-M, 3-180 CPUID
51 reference.
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53 Intel Corporation, Intel Processor Identification and the CPUID In‐
54 struction, Application note 485.
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57 This page is part of release 5.13 of the Linux man-pages project. A
58 description of the project, information about reporting bugs, and the
59 latest version of this page, can be found at
60 https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.
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64Linux 2019-08-02 CPUID(4)