pibdump(1)

💖 pibdump — the Qualcomm Atheros Parameter Information Block Dump Utility 💖

okay bestie, gather round, because we're about to read some PIB files and it's gonna be so satisfying. this is pibdump(1), part of the Qualcomm Atheros Open Powerline Toolkit, and she is here to make your binary parameter files make sense. periodt. 🎀

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

pibdump [options] file [>stdout]

like, that's it. that's the whole vibe. one file, some options, and a whole lotta stdout. 🦋

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

So here's the tea: pibdump reads a Qualcomm Atheros powerline parameter information block (PIB) file and prints an object driven dump on stdout. no cap.

And bestie, she's an upgrade — this program replaces the program odd, because it can tell the difference between legacy and current PIB file formats. the way she just knows? iconic behavior. 👑

Now, an object driven dump needs an object definition file. that file lists the size and name of data objects (iykyk: integers, arrays or structures) inside the parameter file. and then — the pretty part — individual data members get presented as smaller, individual data dumps nested inside one big overall data dump. it's giving nesting dolls but make it hex. 🪆

💅 OPTIONS 💅

• -f file — the object definition file that lists the size, name and description of individual individual objects in order of occurance. if you skip this option, object definitions get read from stdin instead. also, heads up: this program does not modify the object definition file. she looks, she does not touch. 🙈
• -?, --help — prints the program help summary on stdout. this option takes precedence over the other options on the command line. she said me first. 💅
• -!, --version — prints program version information on stdout. also takes precedence over other options on the command line. use this one when you're sending screen dumps to Atheros Technical Support so they know exactly which version of the Linux Toolkit you're running. be specific bestie, they need the lore. 📋✨

🧚 ARGUMENTS 🧚

• file — the name of a binary file. it must have either Thunderbolt/Lightning or Panther/Lynx format, or the output will be incorrect. fr fr, don't skip that part. the file is not modified by this program, and only one such file is permitted on the command line. one file only. we don't do plus-ones here. 🚫

🌈 EXAMPLES 🌈

okay so here's an example object definition file for an Ethernet frame. frame fields — like ODA, OSA and ETHTYPE — are defined by length in order of their appears in the frame. array subscripts following object names are optional, but if they're present they become part of the object name. fields having no length are headers and will be ignored. comments and blank lines are also ignored. so chill, you can decorate. 🎨

# ========================================
#
# ----------------------------------------

0 header

6 ODA[6] Own Destination Address
6 OSA[6] Own Source Address
2 ETHTYPE Ethertype or frame length

# ========================================
#
# ----------------------------------------

0 body

1500 Payload[1500]

# ========================================
#
# ----------------------------------------

0 trailer

4 CRC Cyclical Redundancy Check

and then, the moment you've been waiting for — this command uses object definition file ether.txt to identify and display member fields within binary file abc.bin in hexadecimal dump format:

# pibdump -f ether.txt abc.bin

slay. 💅

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

chkpib(7), chkpib2(7), getpib(7), modpib(1), pib2xml(1), pibcomp(1), setpib(1), xml2pib(1)

the whole friend group honestly. go say hi. 🫶

🌟 CREDITS 🌟

Charles Maier

and that's the whole page bestie!! this was open-plc-utils-0.0.3, dated November 2013 — yes she's vintage, and yes she still ate. go dump some PIBs, you got this. 💜✨🦋