VPDDECODE(8)

📦
version 3.7 · 2 versions
  • 3.7 · alpine 3.22, alpine 3.23, alpine 3.24, arch rolling, centos-stream 10, centos-stream 9, debian bookworm, debian trixie, fedora 43, fedora 44, nixos 26.05, opensuse-leap 16.0, ubuntu noble, ubuntu questing, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking (latest)
  • 3.3 · ubuntu jammy
, in alpine 3.22, alpine 3.23, alpine 3.24, arch rolling, centos-stream 10, centos-stream 9, debian bookworm, debian trixie, fedora 43, fedora 44, nixos 26.05, opensuse-leap 16.0, ubuntu noble, ubuntu questing, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

✨ VPDDECODE(8) — vpddecode, the VPD structure decoder ✨

okay so bestie, this is vpddecode 💖 a System Manager's Manual page, and it's the VPD structure decoder 🔥 it's giving "read the hardware's little ID card" energy.

🎀 NAME

vpddecode — VPD structure decoder 💅

🌸 SYNOPSIS

vpddecode [OPTIONS]

🦋 DESCRIPTION

okay so vpddecode prints the "vital product data" info that you can find in almost all IBM and Lenovo computers 💜 the main character items are:

  • BIOS Build ID ✨
  • Box Serial Number 📦
  • Motherboard Serial Number 🔌
  • Machine Type/Model 💻

some systems have these extra items too 👀

  • BIOS Release Date 📅
  • Default Flash Image File Name 🗂️
ngl, these extra items are NOT documented by IBM, so this is literally guesswork 💀 don't blindly trust them! feedback about how accurate these labels are is super welcome 🫶

✨ OPTIONS ✨

  • -d, --dev-mem FILE — reads memory from device FILE 🧚 (default: /dev/mem)
  • -s, --string KEYWORD — only shows the value of the VPD string named by KEYWORD 🔍 it has to be one of these: bios-build-id, box-serial-number, motherboard-serial-number, machine-type-model, bios-release-date. each keyword matches an offset and a length inside the VPD record. not every string is defined on every VPD-enabled system, so don't be shocked 🙈 if KEYWORD is missing or not valid, you get a list of all the valid keywords and vpddecode exits with an error 😭 this option can't be used more than once, and it's mutually exclusive with --dump.
  • -u, --dump — skips the decoding and dumps the VPD records as hexadecimal instead 🍓 it's still text output, so no raw binary will be thrown at you, and an ASCII equivalent is shown when possible ✨ this is mainly useful for debugging 🔧 mutually exclusive with --string.
  • -h, --help — shows usage info and exits 💖
  • -V, --version — shows the version and exits 🌈

📂 FILES

  • /dev/mem

👩‍💻 AUTHOR

Jean Delvare 👑

🔗 SEE ALSO

biosdecode(8), dmidecode(8), mem(4), ownership(8) 🫶

bestie this page was brought to you by dmidecode in February 2007 🌸 VPDDECODE(8) forever, periodt 💅✨

📦 where this page comes from