xref: /linux/Documentation/ABI/testing/dell-smbios-wmi (revision 0e9ab8e4d44ae9d9aaf213bfd2c90bbe7289337b)
1What:		/dev/wmi/dell-smbios
2Date:		November 2017
3KernelVersion:	4.15
4Contact:	Dell.Client.Kernel@dell.com
5Description:
6		Perform SMBIOS calls on supported Dell machines.
7		through the Dell ACPI-WMI interface.
8
9		IOCTL's and buffer formats are defined in:
10		<uapi/linux/wmi.h>
11
12		1) To perform an SMBIOS call from userspace, you'll need to
13		   first determine the minimum size of the calling interface
14		   buffer for your machine.
15		   Platforms that contain larger buffers can return larger
16		   objects from the system firmware.
17		   Commonly this size is either 4k or 32k.
18
19		   To determine the size of the buffer read() a u64 dword from
20		   the WMI character device /dev/wmi/dell-smbios.
21
22		2) After you've determined the minimum size of the calling
23		   interface buffer, you can allocate a structure that represents
24		   the structure documented above.
25
26		3) In the 'length' object store the size of the buffer you
27		   determined above and allocated.
28
29		4) In this buffer object, prepare as necessary for the SMBIOS
30		   call you're interested in.  Typically SMBIOS buffers have
31		   "class", "select", and "input" defined to values that coincide
32		   with the data you are interested in.
33		   Documenting class/select/input values is outside of the scope
34		   of this documentation. Check with the libsmbios project for
35		   further documentation on these values.
36
37		6) Run the call by using ioctl() as described in the header.
38
39		7) The output will be returned in the buffer object.
40
41		8) Be sure to free up your allocated object.
42