FreeBSD manual
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VPD(4) FreeBSD Kernel Interfaces Manual (i386) VPD(4)
NAME
vpd - Vital Product Data kernel interface
SYNOPSIS
device vpd
DESCRIPTION
IBM ThinkPad notebooks (and most IBM desktop PCs) have a 48-byte Vital
Product Data (VPD) structure located in the BIOS Shadow RAM.
The VPD provides machine type and model information, the build ID (this
is roughly the BIOS version) and serial number information.
The vpd driver scans the BIOS area and claims the memory used by the VPD
structure. It provides the sysctl(3) branch hw.vpd to allow this
information to be accessed by the userland. The following variables are
provided, one per VPD attachment (there should only be one):
MACHINE_TYPE (machine.type) Machine type.
MACHINE_MODEL (machine.model) Machine model.
BUILD_ID (build.id) BIOS Build ID.
SERIAL_BOX (serial.box) Box Serial Number.
SERIAL_PLANAR (serial.planar) Motherboard Serial Number.
SEE ALSO
TP General - Using the BIOS Build ID to identify IBM ThinkPad systems,
Reference #: MIGR-45120,
http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=psg1MIGR-45120, November 22,
2002.
HISTORY
The vpd driver first appeared in FreeBSD 5.1.
AUTHORS
The vpd driver and this manual page were written by Matthew N. Dodd
<mdodd@FreeBSD.org>.
FreeBSD 14.0-RELEASE-p11 August 31, 2004 FreeBSD 14.0-RELEASE-p11