ACPIDUMP(8)             NetBSD System Manager's Manual             ACPIDUMP(8)

NAME
     acpidump -- dump ACPI tables

SYNOPSIS
     acpidump [-r]
     acpidump [-r] [-o dsdt_file_for_output]
     acpidump [-r] [-f dsdt_file_for_input]

DESCRIPTION
     The acpidump utility analyzes ACPI tables in physical memory and dumps
     them to standard output.  In addition, acpidump can disassemble AML (ACPI
     Machine Language) found in these tables and dump them as ASL (ACPI Source
     Language).

     ACPI tables have an essential data block (the DSDT, Differentiated System
     Description Table), that includes information used on the kernel side
     such as detailed information about PnP hardware, procedures for control-
     ling power management support and so on.  The acpidump utility can
     extract the DSDT data block from physical memory and store it into a DSDT
     data file, and also can generate an output in ASL from a given DSDT data
     file.

     When acpidump is invoked without the -f option, it will read ACPI tables
     from physical memory via a special file /dev/mem and dump them.  First it
     searches for the RSDP (Root System Description Pointer), which has the
     signature "RSD PTR ", and then gets the RSDT (Root System Description Ta-
     ble), which includes a list of pointers to physical memory addresses for
     other tables.  The RSDT itself and all other tables linked from RSDT are
     generically called SDTs (System Description Tables) and their header has
     a common format which consists of items such as Signature, Length, Revi-
     sion, Checksum, OEMID, OEM Table ID, OEM Revision, Creator ID and Creator
     Revision.  The acpidump utility dumps contents of these SDTs.  For fur-
     ther information about formats of each table, see chapter 5: ``ACPI
     Software Programming Model'' from the ACPI specifications referenced
     below.

     There is always a pointer to a physical memory address in RSDT for FACP
     (Fixed ACPI Description Table).  The FACP defines static system informa-
     tion about power management support (ACPI Hardware Register Implementa-
     tion) such as interrupt mode (INT_MODEL), SCI interrupt number, SMI com-
     mand port (SMI_CMD) and location of ACPI registers.  The FACP also has a
     pointer to a physical memory address for DSDT, which includes information
     used on the kernel side such as PnP, power management support and so on.
     While the other tables are described in fixed format, the DSDT consists
     of AML data which is compiled from sources written in free formated ASL,
     which is the description language for ACPI.  When acpidump outputs DSDT,
     it disassembles the AML data and formats it as ASL.

OPTIONS
     The following options are supported by acpidump:

     -f dsdt_file_for_input
             Interprets AML data in DSDT from a file specified in
             dsdt_file_for_input and dumps them in ASL to standard output.

     -h      Displays usage and exits.

     -o dsdt_file_for_output
             Stores DSDT data block from physical memory into a file specified
             in dsdt_file_for_output in addition to behavior with no option.

     -r      Additionally outputs commented ResourceTemplate() macros for
             Buffer objects that contain valid resource streams.  These macros
             are defined in the ACPI 2.0 specification section 16.2.4.

FILES
     /dev/mem

EXAMPLES
     This is an example to get a dump of SDTs and a DSDT data file simultane-
     ously on a machine that supports ACPI BIOS.

           # acpidump -o foo.dsdt > foo.asl

SEE ALSO
     acpi(4), amldb(8)

     Advanced Configuration and Power Interface Specification, Intel Microsoft
     Toshiba, Revision 1.0b, 2.0.

HISTORY
     The acpidump utility appeared in FreeBSD 5.0.

AUTHORS
     Doug Rabson <dfr@FreeBSD.org>
     Mitsuru IWASAKI <iwasaki@FreeBSD.org>
     Yasuo YOKOYAMA <yokoyama@jp.FreeBSD.org>

     Some contributions made by Chitoshi Ohsawa <ohsawa@catv1.ccn-net.ne.jp>,
     Takayasu IWANASHI <takayasu@wendy.a.perfect-liberty.or.jp>, Yoshihiko
     SARUMARU <mistral@imasy.or.jp>, Hiroki Sato <hrs@FreeBSD.org>, Michael
     Lucas <mwlucas@blackhelicopters.org> and Michael Smith
     <msmith@FreeBSD.org>.

BUGS
     In the current implementation, acpidump doesn't dump any information of
     Firmware ACPI Control Structure (FACS) specified by a pointer in FACP.

NetBSD 5.0_STABLE               August 31, 2000              NetBSD 5.0_STABLE
