I have previously written about the Solaris smbios utility, and how the utility can be used to discover various items about the hardware platform you are running on. While reviewing one of my mailing lists over the weekend, I came across a post that describes the SMB_TYPE_BASEBOARD and SMB_TYPE_SYSTEM properties. In most cases these two properties will allow you to discover the hardware platform you are running on, and details about the motherboard in use:
$ /usr/sbin/smbios -t SMB_TYPE_BASEBOARD
ID SIZE TYPE
2 75 SMB_TYPE_BASEBOARD (base board)
Manufacturer: Intel Corporation
Product: 440BX Desktop Reference Platform
Version: None
Serial Number: None
Chassis: 0
Flags: 0x0
Board Type: 0x1 (unknown)
$ /usr/sbin/smbios -t SMB_TYPE_SYSTEM
ID SIZE TYPE
1 123 SMB_TYPE_SYSTEM (system information)
Manufacturer: VMware, Inc.
Product: VMware Virtual Platform
Version: None
Serial Number: VMware-56 4d 5f 40 6e ce 46 77-3d 47 9c 0f 50 c6 27 b0
UUID: 564d5f40-6ece-4677-3d47-9c0f50c627b0
Wake-Up Event: 0x6 (power switch)
SKU Number:
Family:
If you are building an inventory system, or just want to see what type of system is in use, this information will be of great value!