When you are trying to get hardware details for Linux machines, it seems very challenging at first but you have variety options and it is quiet easy. Some includes using custom scripts and existing resource folders(ex: dmesg, /proc) or by some applications like hwinfo and lshw.
In this article we will mention about different methods to get the hardware details from your Linux OS. These tips are mainly for Redhat, Suse and Debian and different distros might include little or more details for the hardware depending on the kernel levels.
1- Hardware Details on Linux using custom script:
This script will get almost everything you would need using existing messages or applications and give you a brief output.
It uses dmesg to get Memory Information
lspci for displaying information about all PCI buses in the system and all devices connected to them. By default, it shows a brief list of devices.
/proc/cpuinfo for CPU information (including cpu model, modelname (AMD Opteron(tm) Processor), Mhz (1992 Mhz)
fdisk -l –> For Hard drive and partition information
rpm -qa for the release info (mainly for Redhat) so you can remove this line for other distros.
/etc/*-release to get the Linux distro
uname -a to get the Linux Kernel level
#!/usr/bin/sh rm /tmp/outputecho "/n PCI info /n" > /tmp/output lspci >> /tmp/output echo "/n Memory info /n" >> /tmp/output /tmp/output dmesg | grep -i memory >> /tmp/output echo "/n CPU info /n" >> /tmp/output cat /proc/cpuinfo /n" >> /tmp/output echo " HDD info /n" >> /tmp/output fdisk -l >> /tmp/output echo "/n " >> /tmp/output fdisk -l /dev/sdb* >> /tmp/output echo "/n" >> /tmp/output fdisk -l /dev/hda* >> /tmp/output echo "/n Package info /n" >> /tmp/output rpm -qa >> /tmp/output echo "/n Relese info /n" >> /tmp/output cat /etc/*-release >> /tmp/output echo "/n platform info /n" >> /tmp/output uname -a >> /tmp/output
2- Hardware Details on Linux using tools (hwinfo, lshw):
There are different tools for different distros that you can use to get the hardware details.
On Suse, you can use: # hwinfo
You could hwinfo for Debians (apt-get hwinfo) very quickly too. It is very handy.
# hwinfo –short will give you a brief summary of your hardware
# hwinfo --short cpu: AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 246, 1992 MHz AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 246, 1992 MHz monitor: Generic Monitor graphics card: ATI Rage XL storage: Floppy disk controller AMD-8111 IDE Silicon Image SiI 3114 SATALink Controller network: eth2 Intel EtherExpress PRO/100 S Server Adapter eth0 Broadcom NetXtreme BCM5704 Gigabit Ethernet eth1 Broadcom NetXtreme BCM5704 Gigabit Ethernet network interface: lo Loopback network interface eth0 Ethernet network interface eth1 Ethernet network interface eth2 Ethernet network interface
On Debian, you can use: # lshw
# lshw -short will generate a summary output of your hardware list in a organized fashion.
H/W path Device Class Description ====================================================== system PowerEdge 1950 /0 bus 0TT740 /0/0 memory 64KiB BIOS /0/400 processor Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5405 @ 2.00GHz /0/400/700 memory 128KiB L1 cache /0/400/701 memory 12MiB L2 cache /0/400/702 memory L3 cache /0/401 processor Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5405 @ 2.00GHz /0/401/703 memory 128KiB L1 cache /0/401/704 memory 12MiB L2 cache /0/401/705 memory L3 cache /0/1000 memory 8GiB System Memory
3- Hardware Details on Linux using /proc folder:
You can get as many details as you like by just going under /proc folder and showing the contents of files. (# more meminfo)
# more meminfo MemTotal: 8186420 kB MemFree: 56572 kB Buffers: 166008 kB Cached: 4887080 kB SwapCached: 12 kB Active: 2886576 kB Inactive: 4722968 kB SwapTotal: 7807580 kB SwapFree: 7807548 kB Dirty: 220 kB Writeback: 0 kB AnonPages: 2556436 kB Mapped: 35064 kB Slab: 453328 kB SReclaimable: 422408 kB SUnreclaim: 30920 kB PageTables: 11848 kB NFS_Unstable: 0 kB Bounce: 0 kB CommitLimit: 11900788 kB Committed_AS: 4229312 kB VmallocTotal: 34359738367 kB VmallocUsed: 27880 kB VmallocChunk: 34359710403 kB HugePages_Total: 0 HugePages_Free: 0 HugePages_Rsvd: 0 HugePages_Surp: 0 Hugepagesize: 2048 kB
4- Listing DMI Table with dmidecode and USB devices with lsusb:
Another very effective and powerful tool is # dmidecode. dmidecode is a tool for dumping a computers DMI (some say SMBIOS) table contents in a human-readable format. This table contains a description of the systems hardware components, as well as other useful pieces of information such as serial numbers and BIOS revision.
# lsusb is the tool to show the devices attached to USB port even more.
if you use only # lsusb it will list the ports and what’s attached to it. If you use, lsusb with -v (verbose) you will get tons of info about USB ports.
# lsusb -v Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000 Device Descriptor: bLength 18 bDescriptorType 1 bcdUSB 1.10 bDeviceClass 9 Hub bDeviceSubClass 0 Unused bDeviceProtocol 0 Full speed hub bMaxPacketSize0 64 idVendor 0x0000 idProduct 0x0000 bcdDevice 2.06 iManufacturer 3 Linux 2.6.18.2-34-default ohci_hcd iProduct 2 OHCI Host Controller iSerial 1 0000:03:00.1 bNumConfigurations 1 Configuration Descriptor: bLength 9 bDescriptorType 2 wTotalLength 25 bNumInterfaces 1 bConfigurationValue 1 iConfiguration 0 bmAttributes 0xe0 Self Powered Remote Wakeup MaxPower 0mA Interface Descriptor: bLength 9 bDescriptorType 4 bInterfaceNumber 0 bAlternateSetting 0 bNumEndpoints 1 bInterfaceClass 9 Hub bInterfaceSubClass 0 Unused bInterfaceProtocol 0 Full speed hub iInterface 0 Endpoint Descriptor: bLength 7 bDescriptorType 5 bEndpointAddress 0x81 EP 1 IN bmAttributes 3 Transfer Type Interrupt Synch Type None Usage Type Data wMaxPacketSize 0x0002 1x 2 bytes bInterval 255
Entries (RSS)