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>.

Debian                                           August 31, 2004                                          VPD(4)