DX Application Performance Management

It is sometimes very time consuming to go down to the Data-Center and pull out a device for getting the serial number of the device, or even the service tag. It is however quite easy to extract that information from a running system (In case the Manufacturer has inserted that information into the BIOS. 

This blog entry will show you how to extract that information on the Linux side.

Under Windows, almost every hardware manufacturer will provide its own tool for extracting the information (Dell, HP) will need to download the Bios Diagnosis tool etc. to extract that information. So - go to the manufacturer site, and check for the tool.

On a Linux system, the magic tool to use is dmidecode (on all older distributions). There are geeks out there telling that using lshw is better - but keep in mind that lshw will provide details on the hardware type, and amount and where it is placed on the system, but not on the serial numbers.

The advantage of dmidecode is that one can provide a string to extract only the serial number, one can provide the wanted information to extract: 

For example when using dmidecode with a missing argument, one will see the list of specific data one can extract.

Provide the argument, and if it exists, it will be dumped to the shell. This comes in very handy when using a shell-script to automate the data extraction.

Some devices on the lose do not have these information implanted. In that case, the admin will have to use the old long way to gather that information (manually). On systems where the Manufacturer has not entered the data, one can see either:

Note that sometimes, on String-data, one tends to find: To be filled by O.E.M. or N/A

dmidecode has also the possibility to list all information based on hardware type. When looking for specific hardware (for example to increase the amount of Memory for a device), one can start dmidecode -t memory to extract all details on the installed memory.
In the below example, one can see that the maximum capacity of 16GB of Ram is already installed. The below slot information show each an amount of 8GB Ram. One can also see the Manufacturer of the RAM, and more important the part number if one needs to be replaced!

jmertin@titan:~$ sudo dmidecode -t memory
# dmidecode 3.1
Getting SMBIOS data from sysfs.
SMBIOS 2.7 present.

Handle 0x0046, DMI type 16, 23 bytes
Physical Memory Array
 Location: System Board Or Motherboard
 Use: System Memory
 Error Correction Type: None
 Maximum Capacity: 16 GB
 Error Information Handle: Not Provided
 Number Of Devices: 2

Handle 0x0047, DMI type 17, 34 bytes
Memory Device
 Array Handle: 0x0046
 Error Information Handle: Not Provided
 Total Width: 64 bits
 Data Width: 64 bits
 Size: 8192 MB
 Form Factor: SODIMM
 Set: None
 Locator: DIMM A
 Bank Locator: Not Specified
 Type: DDR3
 Type Detail: Synchronous
 Speed: 1600 MT/s
 Manufacturer: Samsung
 Serial Number: 83C0****
 Asset Tag: 02143900
 Part Number: M471B1G73DB0-YK0 
 Rank: 2
 Configured Clock Speed: 1600 MT/s

Handle 0x0049, DMI type 17, 34 bytes
Memory Device
 Array Handle: 0x0046
 Error Information Handle: Not Provided
 Total Width: 64 bits
 Data Width: 64 bits
 Size: 8192 MB
 Form Factor: SODIMM
 Set: None
 Locator: DIMM B
 Bank Locator: Not Specified
 Type: DDR3
 Type Detail: Synchronous
 Speed: 1600 MT/s
 Manufacturer: Samsung
 Serial Number: CCF6****
 Asset Tag: 03151900
 Part Number: M471B1G73QH0-YK0 
 Rank: 2
 Configured Clock Speed: 1600 MT/s

On a rare occasion, one can also find serial numbers for specific addon-cards due to the loaded driver (binary blob).

Many intel based  WiFi Mini-PCI cards for example do that. Using lspci as seen below.

For add-on hardware which registers itself as another PCIx or USB compatible device, extracting the information will be more complex. Usually that will only work using the manufacturer provided software or drivers which can query the hardware for these details. The OS itself will only see the published API which usually does not provider any such details.

Using the storage manager for Adaptec controllers for example, one can see the following details including the Serial number.