System serial number

royce.williams · Oct 7, 2016, 3:43 PM

I just noticed a cool new feature – the display of an overall system serial number in the main status dashboard. Unless I missed it earlier, it first showed up in 2.3.2-p1.

For people running real pfSense Store hardware, a real serial number will be displayed, I expect. :) On my generic system, the serial is a generic one:

(if the remote image is ever removed, that serial is currently GXXXX301XXXXX).

This new feature isn't currently mentioned in the release notes for 2.3.2-p1. I assume that different characters in the string will denote different models, etc.?

I'm curious about what will the different possible codes be, and what we can learn from them.

kpa · Oct 7, 2016, 3:49 PM

On my system it shows the exact value of kern.hostuuid sysctl which is a UUID that gets randomly generated on first boot after installation.

royce.williams · Oct 7, 2016, 4:20 PM

Interesting. Is your system from the pfSense store?

royce.williams · Oct 7, 2016, 4:24 PM

I just checked and my kern.hostuuid sysctl is populated like yours, but that is unrelated to what I'm seeing on the dashboard.

kpa · Oct 7, 2016, 5:05 PM

It's a self-built machine so there's no real H/W serialnumber on it.

jwt · Oct 7, 2016, 6:39 PM

@Royce:

This new feature isn't currently mentioned in the release notes for 2.3.2-p1. I assume that different characters in the string will denote different models, etc.?

I'm just going to quote from the page you listed:

The hardware serial number is now displayed in the system information widget, or a host UUID if a serial number is not found. This is for display purposes and facilitates users seeking support in identifying their hardware.

Fourth major bullet point.

royce.williams · Oct 7, 2016, 10:41 PM

The wiki was updated after I started this thread. I used the phrase "isn't currently mentioned" on purpose. :)

Wikis are fluid, and I appreciate the add. I'd still be interested in knowing more about how the serial numbers are detected and used. I am definitely not using pfSense-supplied hardware, but instead of showing a UUID as I would expect, I'm getting a generic-ish serial number.

phil.davis · Oct 8, 2016, 2:10 AM

A bit more info is here: https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=118859.msg658363#msg658363

It uses:

/bin/kenv smbios.system.serial

Try that command on your system, if it returns something then that is what will be displayed, otherwise it moves on to get and display the UUID.

royce.williams · Oct 8, 2016, 2:21 AM

Ah, it's the SMBIOS serial? OK, that makes sense now. My pfSense serial does indeed match the underlying SMBIOS for the board.

Thanks - very informative!

jahonix · Oct 8, 2016, 8:05 AM

Well, one of my test systems now shows:

Netgate APU	
Serial: 655dc6...

While the APU part is correct, this device has never seen Netgate.
Technically correct would be: PC Engines, APU