#1 Dmidecode Command In Linux To Know Hardware Information

In this article we’ll see how we can use Dmidecode command to retrieve hardware information of any Linux system. Suppose if we want to upgrade a system we need to gather information like Memory, BIOS and CPU etc. With help of Dmidecode command we will come to know the details without opening system chasis. Dmidecode command works for RHEL/Almalinux/Fedora/Ubuntu Linux.

dmidecode is a command-line tool in Linux used to retrieve hardware information directly from the system’s Desktop Management Interface (DMI) table. It allows you to view details about your system’s hardware components, such as BIOS version, processor, memory, cache, and system serial numbers, without having to open the system casing.

Table of Contents

1. Basic Output of Demidecode

Below is the Demidecode command sample output.

2. How to Get DMI Types

DMI Id give us particular hardware information of system. Dmidecode with options ‘-t ‘or ‘–type‘ and ‘Id‘ will provide us the exact infromation. Id 6 will give us Memory Module information.

Following are the DMI types details.

Type   Information
----------------------------------------
          0 BIOS
          1 System
          2 Base Board
          3 Chassis
          4 Processor
          5 Memory Controller
          6 Memory Module
          7 Cache
          8 Port Connector
          9 System Slots
         10 On Board Devices
         11 OEM Strings
         12 System Configuration Options
         13 BIOS Language
         14 Group Associations
         15 System Event Log
         16 Physical Memory Array
         17 Memory Device
         18 32-bit Memory Error
         19 Memory Array Mapped Address
         20 Memory Device Mapped Address
         21 Built-in Pointing Device
         22 Portable Battery
         23 System Reset
         24 Hardware Security
         25 System Power Controls
         26 Voltage Probe
         27 Cooling Device
         28 Temperature Probe
         29 Electrical Current Probe
         30 Out-of-band Remote Access
         31 Boot Integrity Services
         32 System Boot
         33 64-bit Memory Error
         34 Management Device
         35 Management Device Component
         36 Management Device Threshold Data
         37 Memory Channel
         38 IPMI Device
         39 Power Supply

Instead of going with ‘type_id‘ you can also use keyword with ‘-t‘ argument to the dmidecode command. Following are the list of available keywords.

Keyword Types
------------------------------
bios 0, 13
system 1, 12, 15, 23, 32
baseboard 2, 10
chassis 3
processor 4
memory 5, 6, 16, 17
cache 7
connector 8
slot 9

For example, to get the Cache information on system, you can execute below command instead of Id 7.

3. How to Get Memory Information

How do i get Memory information on system and how much memory is supported by system? The following command shows that the system can support maximum 32GB of RAM.