xref: /freebsd/share/man/man4/nvram.4 (revision c383d55b778f1e370e2f7710f013fb4dfc4fc3b9)
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29c383d55bSGavin Atkinson.Dd February 8, 2010
30c383d55bSGavin Atkinson.Dt NVRAM 4
315c335c81SXin LI.Os
325c335c81SXin LI.Sh NAME
335c335c81SXin LI.Nm nvram
345c335c81SXin LI.Nd "non-volatile RAM"
355c335c81SXin LI.Sh SYNOPSIS
365c335c81SXin LITo compile this driver into the kernel,
375c335c81SXin LIplace the following line in your
385c335c81SXin LIkernel configuration file:
395c335c81SXin LI.Bd -ragged -offset indent
405c335c81SXin LI.Cd "device nvram"
415c335c81SXin LI.Ed
425c335c81SXin LI.Pp
435c335c81SXin LIAlternatively, to load the driver as a
445c335c81SXin LImodule at boot time, place the following line in
455c335c81SXin LI.Xr loader.conf 5 :
465c335c81SXin LI.Bd -literal -offset indent
475c335c81SXin LInvram_load="YES"
485c335c81SXin LI.Ed
495c335c81SXin LI.Sh DESCRIPTION
505c335c81SXin LIThe
515c335c81SXin LI.Nm
525c335c81SXin LIdriver provides access to BIOS configuration NVRAM on i386 and amd64
535c335c81SXin LIsystems.
545c335c81SXin LI.Pp
555c335c81SXin LIPC motherboard uses a small non-volatile memory to store BIOS settings
565c335c81SXin LIwhich is usually part of its clock chip and sometimes referred as
575c335c81SXin LI.Dq CMOS SRAM .
585c335c81SXin LIThis driver exposes bytes 14 through 128 of the NVRAM, or a total of
595c335c81SXin LI114 bytes, at offset zero of the device file
605c335c81SXin LI.Pa /dev/nvram .
615c335c81SXin LI.Pp
625c335c81SXin LIThis driver is useful for cloning machines that shares the same hardware
635c335c81SXin LIconfiguration and need same BIOS setting tweaks.
645c335c81SXin LI.Sh IMPLEMENTATION NOTES
655c335c81SXin LIThe BIOS NVRAM's bytes 16 through 31 are checksummed at byte 32.
665c335c81SXin LIThis driver
675c335c81SXin LI.Em does not
685c335c81SXin LItake care for these checksums.
695c335c81SXin LI.Sh EXAMPLES
705c335c81SXin LIBackup existing BIOS NVRAM to
715c335c81SXin LI.Pa nvram.bin :
725c335c81SXin LI.Pp
735c335c81SXin LI.Dl dd if=/dev/nvram of=nvram.bin
745c335c81SXin LI.Pp
755c335c81SXin LIRestore BIOS NVRAM from
765c335c81SXin LI.Pa nvram.bin :
775c335c81SXin LI.Pp
785c335c81SXin LI.Dl dd if=nvram.bin of=/dev/nvram
795c335c81SXin LI.Sh SEE ALSO
805c335c81SXin LI.Xr dd 1
815c335c81SXin LI.Sh HISTORY
825c335c81SXin LIThe
835c335c81SXin LI.Nm
845c335c81SXin LIdevice driver first appeared in
855c335c81SXin LI.Fx 6.4 .
865c335c81SXin LI.Sh AUTHORS
875c335c81SXin LI.An -nosplit
885c335c81SXin LIThe
895c335c81SXin LI.Nm
905c335c81SXin LIdevice driver was written by
915c335c81SXin LI.An Peter Wemm .
925c335c81SXin LIThis manual page was written by
935c335c81SXin LI.An Xin LI .
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