ACPIDUMP(8)

💅 ACPIDUMP — like, the whole manual, bestie

okay so real quick, the vibe: this is acpidump, section 8 of the System Manager's Manual. sysadmin territory. buckle up 🎀

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✨ NAME ✨

acpidump — dump a system's ACPI tables to an ASCII file. yes. that's the whole thing. it's giving "one job and it does it" 👑

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

acpidump [options]

that's it. that's the whole synopsis. no required args, no drama. iconic 💅

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so acpidump dumps the system's ACPI tables to an ASCII file — and the whole point is that the file is appropriate for attaching to a bug report 🐛✨ like, this is the file you hand to the devs when something's cursed and you need someone smarter than you (no offense) to look at it.

and then, subsequently, those dumped tables can be processed by utilities in the ACPICA package. that's the workflow bestie. dump, attach, extract, done 🫶

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💖 OPTIONS 💖

acpidump options are as follow:

⭐ Options

• -b — dump tables to binary files 💾
• -h, -? — this help message. you know the drill 🫶
• -o <File> — redirect output to file. bye bye terminal, hello File 🎀
• -r <Address> — dump tables from the specified RSDP 📍
• -s — print table summaries only. just the vibes, not the full tea 🍵
• -v — display version information 🏷️
• -z — verbose mode. she talks more now 🗣️

🧚 Table Options

• -a <Address> — get table via a physical address 📌
• -c <on|off> — turning on/off customized table dumping. literally a toggle, <on|off>, that's the whole value set 🔘
• -f <BinaryFile> — get table via a binary file 📁
• -n <Signature> — get table via a name/signature 🖊️
• -x — do not use but dump XSDT
• -x -x — do not use or dump XSDT. yes, twice. that's how you say it. no cap 🫠

Invocation without parameters dumps all available tables. just raw-dogging the command with zero flags = everything, bestie.

Multiple mixed instances of -a, -f, and -n are supported 💫 like, you can stack em. mix em. go off.

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🌈 EXAMPLES 🌈

first, dump it out:

# acpidump > acpidump.out

then extract, and she'll narrate everything she pulls out:

$ acpixtract -a acpidump.out
        Acpi table [DSDT] -  15974 bytes written to DSDT.dat
        Acpi table [FACS] -     64 bytes written to FACS.dat
        Acpi table [FACP] -    116 bytes written to FACP.dat
        Acpi table [APIC] -    120 bytes written to APIC.dat
        Acpi table [MCFG] -     60 bytes written to MCFG.dat
        Acpi table [SSDT] -    444 bytes written to SSDT1.dat
        Acpi table [SSDT] -    439 bytes written to SSDT2.dat
        Acpi table [SSDT] -    439 bytes written to SSDT3.dat
        Acpi table [SSDT] -    439 bytes written to SSDT4.dat
        Acpi table [SSDT] -    439 bytes written to SSDT5.dat
        Acpi table [RSDT] -     76 bytes written to RSDT.dat
        Acpi table [RSDP] -     20 bytes written to RSDP.dat

and then this:

$ iasl -d *.dat

which creates *.dsl — a human readable form which can be edited and compiled using iasl. oh she's readable now. we love a glow-up ✨📖

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💀 NOTES 💀

acpidump must be run as root. like, that's not a suggestion, that's the law 👮‍♀️👑

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🔥 REFERENCES 🔥

ACPICA: https://acpica.org/ 🌐

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🍓 FILES 🍓

• /dev/mem
• /sys/firmware/acpi/tables/*
• /sys/firmware/acpi/tables/dynamic/*
• /sys/firmware/efi/systab

look at all these paths. the way that /sys/firmware/acpi/tables/dynamic/* is just sitting there being all dynamic. obsessed 🦋

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👑 AUTHOR 👑

Original by:

• Len Brown <len.brown@intel.com>

Written by:

• Chao Guan <chao.guan@intel.com>

Updated by:

• Bob Moore <robert.moore@intel.com>
• Lv Zheng <lv.zheng@intel.com>

shoutout to the whole squad honestly 🫶✨

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💜 SEE ALSO 💜

acpixtract(8), iasl(8).

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⭐ COPYRIGHT ⭐

COPYRIGHT (c) 2013, Intel Corporation.

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and that's the page, bestie 🎀 no cap, you now know acpidump better than most people know their own wifi password. this was the System Manager's Manual, ACPIDUMP(8) — copyright 2013, Intel Corporation — mwah 💋 🌈