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Manpage of sysinfo
sysinfo
Section: User Commands (1)
Updated: 26 June 2001
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NAME
sysinfo - MagniComp(tm) SysInfo(tm) command displays system information in a platform neutral manner
DOCUMENTATION GUIDE
sysinfo(1) Overview and Command Line Interface (CLI)
mcsysinfogui(1) Graphical User Interface (GUI)
mcsysinforeport(1) Description of "-format report" output
mcsysinfoc(3) C API
mcsysinfoperl(3) Perl API
mcsysinfocf(5) Configuration file specification
SYNOPSIS
sysinfo
[
-be
path
]
[
-configdir
DirName
]
[
-configfile
FileName
]
[
-copyright
]
[
-class
item1,item2,...
]
[
-danger
]
[
-format
FormatType
]
[
-infile
file
]
[
-msgclass
msgclass1,msgclass2,...
]
[
-msglevel
msglevel1,msglevel2,...
]
[
-nw
]
[
-offset
amount
]
[
-repsep
string
]
[
-show
item1,item2,...
]
[
+|-swfiles
]
[
-type
type1,type2,...
]
[
+|-unknown
]
[
+|-unused
]
[
+|-useconfig
]
[
+|-useprom
]
sysinfo
-list
[
class|format|msgclass|msglevel|show|type
]
sysinfo
-version
DESCRIPTION
The
MagniComp(tm)
SysInfo(tm)
program
displays various types of information about the local host's hardware
and
operating system (OS) software.
It is intended to provide information in both human readable
(GUI and/or command line) and
program parsable formats.
System Administrators can use
MagniComp(tm)
SysInfo(tm)
to obtain hardware asset information and OS configuration information.
Programs which use
MagniComp(tm)
SysInfo(tm)
can obtain
this information
in a platform independent manner.
The amount of information displayed varies by operating system.
Here are some of the types of information that may be provided:
-
- Host name
- Host name aliases
- Host network addresses
- Host ID
- System serial number
- Manufacturer of the system's hardware
- System model name
- CPU type
- Application architecture
- Kernel architecture
- Amount of main memory
- Operating system name
- Operating system version
- Kernel version
- Install hardware (device) information
- Kernel parameters
- System configuration parameters
- Installed software packages
By default
MagniComp(tm)
SysInfo(tm)
will attempt to start it's Graphical User Interface (GUI) if
the
$DISPLAY
environment variable is set and
the
Tk
module is available in
perl(1).
If
$DISPLAY
is not set or
Tk
is not available or
the
-nw
option is specified,
MagniComp(tm)
SysInfo(tm)
will output to the command line.
See
mcsysinfogui(1)
for details on GUI usage.
When command line output is used
MagniComp(tm)
SysInfo(tm)
will be default
display a "medium" level of output suitable for a quick glance at
system configuration information.
The
-msglevel all
option provides the maximum amount of system information.
The default command line output format is suitable for most humans.
A program parsable output format is available by specifying:
-
-repsep '|' -format report
Please see
mcsysinfoc(3)
for a description of the C API
and
mcsysinfoperl(3)
for the
perl(1)
API.
The scope of the information presented can by limited by classes
using the ``-class Name''
option.
Further selection can by made specifying the class of information and
a specific item using ``-class Name -show Item''
Upon startup,
MagniComp(tm)
SysInfo(tm)
searches for a configuration file to parse.
If the
-configfile
option is given, the specified configuration file will be used.
Otherwise
MagniComp(tm)
SysInfo(tm)
will search for a suitable configuration file.
Searching stops when the first configuration file is found.
The following search order is used:
- /etc/sysinfo.cf
ConfDir/${OSname}_${OSver}.cf
ConfDir/${OSname}_${OSmajver}.cf
ConfDir/${OSname}.cf
ConfDir/Default.cf
ConfDir
is
/usr/local/sysinfo/config
by default, but can be overridden with the
-configdir
option or by specifying
- ConfDir Dir
in the
/etc/sysinfo.cf
file. See
mcsysinfocf(5)
for more information.
If the file
/etc/sysmodel
exists, the first line of the file is read and used as the
system model name.
OPTIONS
- -be path
-
Use
Path
as the pathname to the back-end
SysInfo
program to use.
- -cfdir DirName
-
This option is obsoleted by the
-configdir
option.
- -cffile FileName
-
This option is obsoleted by the
-configfile
option.
- -configdir DirName
-
Specify the name of the directory to use to find
sysinfo.cf
format configuration files.
- -configfile FileName
-
Specify the name of a
sysinfo.cf
format configuration file to use.
If the specified
FileName
cannot be opened for any reason, an error message is displayed and the
program will exit.
- -copyright
-
Print the software's copyright message and exit.
- -class Name1,Name2,...
-
Limit information to a specific class or classes of information.
The default class is
General.
- -danger
-
Normally
MagniComp(tm)
SysInfo(tm)
checks upon startup to make sure it's running on the same platform
(OS Name, OS Version, CPU Type, and CPU Archecture (on some platforms))
as it was built on. This option overrides/disables this check.
Using this option usually means that the information provided may be
false or incomplete.
- -format FormatType
-
Display output in
FormatType
format.
Valid
FormatType
values are:
-
- pretty
-
Output is suitible for human viewing.
This is the default.
- report
-
Output is in a format suitable for parsing by a program.
Entries are printed one per line with fields seperated by ``|''
(vertical pipe) by default.
The
-repsep
option can be used to change this value.
- -infile file
-
Use
file
as the source of data to display instead of probing system for data.
The
file
should contain data in
sysinfo -format report
format
(see
mcsysinforeport(1) )
This option is only used when using the
SysInfo(tm)
GUI.
- -msgclass msgclass1,msgclass2,...
-
Specify which class of messages should be output.
The default value for
-msgclass
is
info,warn,cerror.
The list of possible
msgclass
values are:
-
- all
-
All of the below classes except for
debug.
- info
-
Display normal informational messages.
All the actual useful bits of
information about your system are output as msgclass info.
- warn
-
Display warning messages about any condition that occured while
MagniComp(tm)
SysInfo(tm)
is running which may affect what information is found.
Normally these are problems such as
MagniComp(tm)
SysInfo(tm)
not running with the right permissions or certain things are missing from
the system which are not required, but may result in incomplete information.
- gerror
-
Display general error messages.
These are non-fatal errors which are usually quite normal.
For instance, a certain type of query (such as a ioctl() call) of a device
fails because it's not supported on that particuliar model.
- cerror
-
Display critical errors which prevent
MagniComp(tm)
SysInfo(tm)
from continuing further.
- debug
-
Print debugging information.
Lots of information you normally don't want to see, but which is very
valuable for debugging problems with
MagniComp(tm)
SysInfo(tm).
- -msglevel msglevel1,msglevel2,...
-
Set the level of messages that are shown.
msglevels
is a comma separated list of values used to determine what
levels of message will be displayed.
The list of possible
msglevel
values are:
-
- all
-
All possible levels of information.
This option provides the maximum amount of detailed information about a
system.
- terse
-
Display output in terse format.
The affect of this option is dependent on the
Class
of information being displayed.
It usually results in the labels for each output value being suppressed.
This is useful if you are running
MagniComp(tm)
SysInfo(tm)
from a script
to obtain a few specific values (e.g. System Model, CPU Architecture, etc).
- brief
-
More than
terse
but less than
all.
- general
-
General level of information useful for a quick look at overall system
configuration.
This is the default.
- descriptions
-
Like
general
but with more descriptive information.
- config
-
Similiar to
general
and
descriptions
- -nw
-
No windows.
Force
SysInfo(tm)
to use it's command line interface (CLI) even if the environment is capable of
running the
SysInfo(tm)
GUI.
- -list [ class|format|msgclass|msglevel|show|type ]
-
List the possible values that may be used with an option.
With no arguments are specified, a list is valid arguments is
displayed.
When an argument is supplied, the information specific to that
argument
is displayed.
- -offset amount
-
Set the number of spaces to offset (indent) when printing
device information.
- -repsep string
-
Change the field seperator string used with
-format report
to be
string.
The default is ``|''
(vertical pipe).
- -show item1,item2,...
-
Show information only about each comma separated item.
Run
sysinfo -list show
for a list of valid item arguments.
If the
-class
option is not specified, then the
General
class is assumed.
- +|-swfiles
-
When
+swfiles
is specified and
software
class information is being displayed, a list of files and file data is
displayed for all files belonging to each package.
The default is
(-swfiles)
not to display file data.
- -type item1,item2,...
-
Limit information to a specific type of item as specified by
item1,item2,...
Run
sysinfo -list type
for a list of valid item arguments.
- +|-unknown
-
Enable (+unknown) or disable (-unknown) showing devices
that appear to be present on the system, but are not "known" to
MagniComp(tm)
SysInfo(tm).
This option is disabled by default.
- +|-unused
-
Enable (+unused) or disable (-unused) showing partitions
that do not appear to be in use.
The default is
-unused.
- +|-useconfig
-
Enable (+useconfig) or disable (-useconfig) use of
configuration files. This option is useful if you want to run
MagniComp(tm)
SysInfo(tm)
without having the configuration files installed.
Note that only certain types of information - such as some of the
General
values - will be available without use of configuration files.
The default is
+useconfig.
- +|-useprom
-
Enable (+useprom) or disable (-useprom) using values
obtained from the system PROM instead of intepreting values obtained
directly from the kernel.
Certain values are normally obtained by looking up a variable in
the kernel and checking the result against a table of values compiled
into
MagniComp(tm)
SysInfo(tm).
By enabling this option,
MagniComp(tm)
SysInfo(tm)
will attempt to obtain certain values from the system PROM.
This support is currently limited to the
System Model
value.
Support is also limited to those machines which support such
a system PROM.
- -version
-
Show version
information for
MagniComp(tm)
SysInfo(tm).
EXAMPLES
The following command displays the maximum amount of information about
a system:
-
sysinfo -msglevel all
A very useful command to use when DEBUGGING
MagniComp(tm)
SysInfo(tm)
is:
-
sysinfo -msglevel all -msgclass all,debug
The following example outputs just the System Model:
-
sysinfo -msglevel terse -show model
This command will limit the output to just information about
Kernel
variables:
-
sysinfo -class kernel
The following command provides the maximum amount of data in a
software parsable format:
-
sysinfo -msglevel all -format report -repsep '|'
AUTHOR
MagniComp
http://www.MagniComp.com
URL
http://www.magnicomp.com/sysinfo
FILES
/usr/local/sysinfo/config - Directory of config files
/etc/sysinfo.cf - Master configuration file
/etc/sysmodel - Explicitly set the CPU model name
SEE ALSO
mcsysinfogui(1),
mcsysinforeport(1),
mcsysinfoc(3),
mcsysinfoperl(3),
mcsysinfocf(5),
gethostid(2), gethostname(2), gethostbyname(3)
DIAGNOSTICS
- %x: Unknown CPU type.
-
The CPU model for the current host could not be determined.
- (unknown)
-
Information could not be determined for this item.
BUGS
Not all operating systems support interfaces to various pieces of
information that
MagniComp(tm)
SysInfo(tm)
supports.
Some devices, mostly devices that use
removable media such as
tape drives and floppy disks, are only indicated (shown) as
present if media is loaded in the device and it's on-line.
This occurs because the OS does not provide a software
interface to query the device when media is not loaded.
SunOS
allows only one process at a time to have
/dev/openprom
open.
This may result in certain pieces of information
not always showing up consistantly. When in doubt,
enable debugging
(-msgclass debug).
Under
SunOS 5.4
the
ROM Version
field is blank.
This is due to a change made by Sun in
libkvm.
Sun patch
102555-01
is suppose to fix this problem.
MagniComp(tm)
Sysinfo(tm)
uses a new OBP interface in
SunOS 5.5
that by-passes this problem.
Under
SunOS 4.x
the
Serial Number
field
is left blank since the kernel usually returns incorrect information.
Under
SunOS 5.x
the
Serial Number
field
will show the serial number as obtained from the system's
IDPROM.
This serial number has no correspondence with the system serial
number that appears on the back of your machine.
Under
SunOS
there is no way to tell the difference between an MC68020 (like the
3/60) and MC68030 (like the 3/80)
based machine.
Index
- NAME
-
- DOCUMENTATION GUIDE
-
- SYNOPSIS
-
- DESCRIPTION
-
- OPTIONS
-
- EXAMPLES
-
- AUTHOR
-
- URL
-
- FILES
-
- SEE ALSO
-
- DIAGNOSTICS
-
- BUGS
-
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Time: 20:34:21 GMT, July 09, 2001