dump

Synopsis

opendmi [global options] dump [command options]

Description

The dump command writes the entry point and the whole table to a binary file, byte for byte, without decoding anything, unless the dump is to be anonymized. The result is the data as the firmware wrote it, which is what to keep when the data has to be looked at later, or on another machine, or reported to someone else.

Dump files are interchangeable with the ones of dmidecode --dump-bin, in both directions: a dump written here is read by dmidecode --from-dump, and a dump written by dmidecode is read by the global --file option of every command of this utility.

Only the structures the platform provides are written. Filter options do not apply, since the point of a dump is to keep everything; use opendmi-export to write a selected part of the data instead.

Options

-?, -h, --help

Print help and exit.

-o path, --output=path

Write the dump to the named file. The default is smbios.bin in the current directory.

-F, --force

Overwrite the output file if it exists. Without this option an existing file is left alone and the command fails.

-A, --anonymize

Replace the values identifying the system, e.g. serial numbers, asset tags, UUIDs and MAC addresses, so that the dump can be shared. The values are replaced with ones of the same length and format wherever the table holds them, under a random key which is never saved, and the dump keeps the layout of the table. Values of the structures no enabled module decodes are replaced only where they repeat a value found elsewhere, see dmi_anonymize. The command fails with the global --overlay option.

Exit status

0

Dump has been written.

1

Data could not be read or written, e.g. the output file exists and --force was not given.

2

Command line is invalid.

Examples

Dump the table of the local platform:

$ opendmi dump -o smbios.bin

Read the dump back:

$ opendmi -i smbios.bin show

Refresh a dump which is already there:

$ opendmi dump -F -o smbios.bin

Dump the table to attach it to a bug report:

$ opendmi dump --anonymize -o smbios.bin

See also

opendmi, opendmi-export, opendmi-lint, dmidecode(8)