xref: /freebsd/share/man/man4/nvram.4 (revision fa9896e082a1046ff4fbc75fcba4d18d1f2efc19)
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45c335c81SXin LI.\" written by: Xin LI <delphij@FreeBSD.org>
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27c383d55bSGavin Atkinson.Dd February 8, 2010
28c383d55bSGavin Atkinson.Dt NVRAM 4
295c335c81SXin LI.Os
305c335c81SXin LI.Sh NAME
315c335c81SXin LI.Nm nvram
325c335c81SXin LI.Nd "non-volatile RAM"
335c335c81SXin LI.Sh SYNOPSIS
345c335c81SXin LITo compile this driver into the kernel,
355c335c81SXin LIplace the following line in your
365c335c81SXin LIkernel configuration file:
375c335c81SXin LI.Bd -ragged -offset indent
385c335c81SXin LI.Cd "device nvram"
395c335c81SXin LI.Ed
405c335c81SXin LI.Pp
415c335c81SXin LIAlternatively, to load the driver as a
425c335c81SXin LImodule at boot time, place the following line in
435c335c81SXin LI.Xr loader.conf 5 :
445c335c81SXin LI.Bd -literal -offset indent
455c335c81SXin LInvram_load="YES"
465c335c81SXin LI.Ed
475c335c81SXin LI.Sh DESCRIPTION
485c335c81SXin LIThe
495c335c81SXin LI.Nm
505c335c81SXin LIdriver provides access to BIOS configuration NVRAM on i386 and amd64
515c335c81SXin LIsystems.
525c335c81SXin LI.Pp
535c335c81SXin LIPC motherboard uses a small non-volatile memory to store BIOS settings
545c335c81SXin LIwhich is usually part of its clock chip and sometimes referred as
555c335c81SXin LI.Dq CMOS SRAM .
565c335c81SXin LIThis driver exposes bytes 14 through 128 of the NVRAM, or a total of
575c335c81SXin LI114 bytes, at offset zero of the device file
585c335c81SXin LI.Pa /dev/nvram .
595c335c81SXin LI.Pp
605c335c81SXin LIThis driver is useful for cloning machines that shares the same hardware
615c335c81SXin LIconfiguration and need same BIOS setting tweaks.
625c335c81SXin LI.Sh IMPLEMENTATION NOTES
635c335c81SXin LIThe BIOS NVRAM's bytes 16 through 31 are checksummed at byte 32.
645c335c81SXin LIThis driver
655c335c81SXin LI.Em does not
665c335c81SXin LItake care for these checksums.
675c335c81SXin LI.Sh EXAMPLES
685c335c81SXin LIBackup existing BIOS NVRAM to
695c335c81SXin LI.Pa nvram.bin :
705c335c81SXin LI.Pp
715c335c81SXin LI.Dl dd if=/dev/nvram of=nvram.bin
725c335c81SXin LI.Pp
735c335c81SXin LIRestore BIOS NVRAM from
745c335c81SXin LI.Pa nvram.bin :
755c335c81SXin LI.Pp
765c335c81SXin LI.Dl dd if=nvram.bin of=/dev/nvram
775c335c81SXin LI.Sh SEE ALSO
785c335c81SXin LI.Xr dd 1
795c335c81SXin LI.Sh HISTORY
805c335c81SXin LIThe
815c335c81SXin LI.Nm
825c335c81SXin LIdevice driver first appeared in
835c335c81SXin LI.Fx 6.4 .
845c335c81SXin LI.Sh AUTHORS
855c335c81SXin LI.An -nosplit
865c335c81SXin LIThe
875c335c81SXin LI.Nm
885c335c81SXin LIdevice driver was written by
895c335c81SXin LI.An Peter Wemm .
905c335c81SXin LIThis manual page was written by
915c335c81SXin LI.An Xin LI .
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