vpd —
Vital
Product Data kernel interface
device vpd
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.
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.
The
vpd driver first appeared in
FreeBSD 5.1.
The
vpd driver and this manual page were written by
Matthew N. Dodd
<
[email protected]>.