sysinfo(2) UNIX System V sysinfo(2)
NAME
sysinfo - get and set system information strings
SYNOPSIS
#include <sys/systeminfo.h>
long sysinfo (int command, char *buf, long count);
DESCRIPTION
sysinfo copies information relating to the UNIX system on which the
process is executing into the buffer pointed to by buf; sysinfo can also
set certain information where appropriate commands are available. count
is the size of the buffer.
The POSIX P1003.1 interface sysconf [see sysconf(2)] provides a similar
class of configuration information, but returns an integer rather than a
string.
The commands available are:
SI_SYSNAME
Copy into the array pointed to by buf the string that would be
returned by uname [see uname(2)] in the sysname field. This is
the name of the implementation of the operating system, e.g.,
System V or UTS.
SI_HOSTNAME
Copy into the array pointed to by buf a string that names the
present host machine. This is the string that would be returned
by uname [see uname(2)] in the nodename field. This hostname or
nodename is often the name the machine is known by locally.
The hostname is the name of this machine as a node in some
network; different networks may have different names for the node,
but presenting the nodename to the appropriate network Directory
or name-to-address mapping service should produce a transport end
point address. The name may not be fully qualified.
Internet host names may be up to 256 bytes in length (plus the
terminating null).
SI_SET_HOSTNAME
Copy the null-terminated contents of the array pointed to by buf
into the string maintained by the kernel whose value will be
returned by succeeding calls to sysinfo with the command
SIHOSTNAME. This command requires that the effective-user-id be
super-user.
SI_RELEASE
Copy into the array pointed to by buf the string that would be
returned by uname [see uname(2)] in the release field. Typical
values might be 4.0 or 3.2.
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SI_VERSION
Copy into the array pointed to by buf the string that would be
returned by uname [see uname(2)] in the version field. The syntax
and semantics of this string are defined by the system provider.
SI_MACHINE
Copy into the array pointed to by buf the string that would be
returned by uname [see uname(2)] in the machine field, e.g., 3b2
or 580.
SI_ARCHITECTURE
Copy into the array pointed to by buf a string describing the
instruction set architecture of the current system, e.g., mc68030,
m32100, or i80486. These names may not match predefined names in
the C language compilation system.
SI_HW_PROVIDER
Copies the name of the hardware manufacturer into the array
pointed to by buf.
SI_HW_SERIAL
Copy into the array pointed to by buf a string which is the ASCII
representation of the hardware-specific serial number of the
physical machine on which the system call is executed. Note that
this may be implemented in Read-Only Memory, via software
constants set when building the operating system, or by other
means, and may contain non-numeric characters. It is anticipated
that manufacturers will not issue the same ``serial number'' to
more than one physical machine. The pair of strings returned by
SIHWPROVIDER and SIHWSERIAL is likely to be unique across all
vendor's System V implementations.
SI_SRPC_DOMAIN
Copies the Secure Remote Procedure Call domain name into the array
pointed to by buf.
SI_SET_SRPC_DOMAIN
Set the string to be returned by sysinfo with the SI_SRPC_DOMAIN
command to the value contained in the array pointed to by buf.
This command requires that the effective-user-id be super-user.
sysinfo will fail if one or both of the following are true:
EPERM The process does not have appropriate privilege for a SET commands.
EINVAL
buf does not point to a valid address, or the data for a SET
command exceeds the limits established by the implementation.
DIAGNOSTICS
Upon successful completion, the value returned indicates the buffer size
in bytes required to hold the complete value and the terminating null
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character. If this value is no greater than the value passed in count,
the entire string was copied; if this value is greater than count, the
string copied into buf has been truncated to count-1 bytes plus a
terminating null character.
Otherwise, a value of -1 is returned and errno is set to indicate the
error.
USAGE
There is in many cases no corresponding programmatic interface to set
these values; such strings are typically settable only by the system
administrator modifying entries in the master.d directory or the code
provided by the particular OEM reading a serial number or code out of
read-only memory, or hard-coded in the version of the operating system.
A good starting guess for count is 257, which is likely to cover all
strings returned by this interface in typical installations.
SEE ALSO
uname(2), sysconf(3C).
BSD compatibility package interfaces gethostname(3), gethostid(3).
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