1smbios(1M)              System Administration Commands              smbios(1M)
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NAME

6       smbios - display the contents of a System Management BIOS image
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SYNOPSIS

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

13       The  smbios utility displays the contents of the System Management BIOS
14       (SMBIOS) image exported by the current system  or  stored  in  a  file.
15       SMBIOS  is an industry-standard mechanism for low-level system software
16       to export hardware configuration  information  to  higher-level  system
17       management  software.  The  SMBIOS data format itself is defined by the
18       Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF). Refer to  http://www.dmtf.org
19       for  more  information  about SMBIOS and to obtain a copy of the SMBIOS
20       specification and implementation guidelines.
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23       The SMBIOS image consists of a table  of  structures,  each  describing
24       some  aspect  of  the  system  software  or  hardware configuration. By
25       default, smbios displays the entire  contents  of  the  current  SMBIOS
26       image.  If the -s option is specified, smbios displays a summary of the
27       structures that are present in the image. If the -w  option  is  speci‐
28       fied,  smbios  writes a copy of the SMBIOS image to the specified file.
29       smbios can then be applied to the resulting file to  display  its  con‐
30       tent.
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33       smbios  attempts  to display each structure and its content in a human-
34       readable fashion. If smbios does not recognize a  structure's  type  or
35       content, the raw hexadecimal data for the structure is displayed.
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OPTIONS

38       The following options are supported:
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40       -B         Disable header validation for broken BIOSes.
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42                  By default, smbios attempts to validate the SMBIOS header by
43                  verifying the anchor strings, header checksums, and  version
44                  number.  This  option  might  be necessary when a BIOS has a
45                  non-compliant header.
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48       -e          Display the contents of the SMBIOS entry point rather  than
49                  the contents of the SMBIOS structure table.
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52       -i id      Display  only  the specified structure, named by its integer
53                  id.
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56       -O          Display obsolete structure types.
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58                  By default, smbios elides output for structures  whose  type
59                  is marked as obsolete in the DMTF SMBIOS specification.
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62       -s         Display  only a summary listing of the structure identifiers
63                  and types, instead of the content of  each  selected  struc‐
64                  ture.
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67       -t type    Display  only those structures whose type matches the speci‐
68                  fied integer type, as defined the DMTF SMBIOS specification.
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71       -w file    Write a copy of the SMBIOS image to the specified  file  and
72                  exit.
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74                  The  SMBIOS  entry point is written to the start of the file
75                  with its structure table address set to the file  offset  of
76                  the  structure table, and a new entry point checksum is com‐
77                  puted.
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80       -x         Display raw hexadecimal data for the selected structures  in
81                  addition to human-readable output.
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83                  By  default,  hexadecimal  data  is only displayed if smbios
84                  cannot display human-readable output for the selected struc‐
85                  tures.
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OPERANDS

89       The following operands are supported:
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91       file    Specifies  an  alternate SMBIOS image to display instead of the
92               current system's SMBIOS image.
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EXIT STATUS

96       The following exit values are returned:
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98       0     Successful completion. All structures in the  SMBIOS  image  were
99             examined successfully.
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102       1     A  fatal  error  occurred,  such as failure to open the specified
103             file or device, or corruption in the image.
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106       2     Invalid command-line options were specified.
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FILES

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

116       See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
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121       ┌─────────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┐
122       │      ATTRIBUTE TYPE         │      ATTRIBUTE VALUE        │
123       ├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
124       │Availability                 │SUNWcsu                      │
125       ├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
126       │Interface Stability          │See below.                   │
127       └─────────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┘
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130       The command-line options are Evolving.  The  human-readable  output  is
131       Unstable.
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SEE ALSO

134       prtdiag(1M), attributes(5), smbios(7D)
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136
137       System     Management     BIOS     Reference     Specification     (see
138       http://www.dmtf.org)
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NOTES

141       The implementation of a System Management BIOS image is entirely at the
142       discretion  of  the  system and BIOS vendors. Not all systems export an
143       SMBIOS. The SMBIOS structure content varies widely between systems  and
144       BIOS  vendors  and  frequently  does  not  comply  with  the guidelines
145       included in the specification.  Some  structure  fields  might  not  be
146       filled  in  by  the BIOS at all, and others might be filled inwith non-
147       conforming values.
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151SunOS 5.11                        31 Aug 2005                       smbios(1M)
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