Using dmidecode on Linux to find host information
A handy utility that I use frequently to find information on my systems is dmidecode. We run Dell PowerEdges, and I frequently need to find the Service Tag for licensing, support, and whatnot. The utility is a way to get information on the system BIOS, firmware versions, etc.
With dmidecode, I can get this information with a simple, one-line command:
# /usr/sbin/dmidecode|grep 'Serial Number'|head -1
Serial Number: ABC1234
You can also page through the output to get the model number of the system. I showed this to our DBA yesterday, so that he could know which systems a client had upgraded to. As you can see, this system is a PowerEdge 6850:
# /usr/sbin/dmidecode |more
[blah blah blah]
Handle 0x0100
DMI type 1, 25 bytes.
System Information
Manufacturer: Dell Computer Corporation
Product Name: PowerEdge 6850
Version: Not Specified
Serial Number: ABC1234
UUID: 11122222-3333-4444-5555-666666777777
Wake-up Type: Power Switch
There’s a lot more information returned by dmidecode than I’ve covered here. Also, the version included in RHEL 4 does not seem to take any arguments, nor does it have a manpage. Peeking at CentOS 5, it does accept several arguments (and there’s actually a manpage, hooray!). YMMV.
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