VPDDECODE

Section: Maintenance Commands (8)
Updated: February 2007
Page Index

NAME

vpddecode - VPD structure decoder

SYNOPSIS

vpddecode [OPTIONS]

DESCRIPTION

vpddecode prints the "vital product data" information that can be found in almost all IBM and Lenovo computers. Available items are:

•: BIOS Build ID
•: Box Serial Number
•: Motherboard Serial Number
•: Machine Type/Model

Some systems have these additional items:

•: BIOS Release Date
•: Default Flash Image File Name

Note that these additional items are not documented by IBM, so this is guess work, and as such should not be blindly trusted. Feedback about the accuracy of these labels is welcome.

OPTIONS

-d, --dev-mem FILE: Read memory from device FILE (default: /dev/mem)
-s, --string KEYWORD: Only display the value of the VPD string identified by KEYWORD. KEYWORD must be a keyword from the following list: bios-build-id, box-serial-number, motherboard-serial-number, machine-type-model, bios-release-date. Each keyword corresponds to an offset and a length within the VPD record. Not all strings may be defined on all VPD-enabled systems. If KEYWORD is not provided or not valid, a list of all valid keywords is printed and vpddecode exits with an error. This option cannot be used more than once. Mutually exclusive with --dump.
-u, --dump: Do not decode the VPD records, dump their contents as hexadecimal instead. Note that this is still a text output, no binary data will be thrown upon you. ASCII equivalent is displayed when possible. This option is mainly useful for debugging. Mutually exclusive with --string.
-h, --help: Display usage information and exit
-V, --version: Display the version and exit

FILES

/dev/mem

AUTHOR

Jean Delvare