NAME    [Toc]    [Back]

     vpd -- Vital Product Data kernel interface

SYNOPSIS    [Toc]    [Back]

     device vpd

DESCRIPTION    [Toc]    [Back]

     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    [Toc]    [Back]

     TP General - Using the BIOS Build ID to identify IBM ThinkPad systems,
     Reference #: MIGR-45120, November 22, 2002,
     http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=psg1MIGR-45120.

HISTORY    [Toc]    [Back]

     The vpd driver first appeared in FreeBSD 5.1.

AUTHORS    [Toc]    [Back]

     The vpd driver and this manual page were written by Matthew N. Dodd
     <[email protected]>.

BUGS    [Toc]    [Back]

     The checksum code is not quite correct so we are not able to detect a
     corrupt VPD structure.


FreeBSD 5.2.1			 April 4, 2003			 FreeBSD 5.2.1