We purchase some of our systems (desktops mainly) through a small third-party OEM. They don't include serial number, manufacturer info., etc. in the BIOS however and this makes it difficult for systems monitoring and inventorying software to distinguish one system from another - especially if we do a clean wipe on the system. MAC addresses are semi-reliable, but not truly unique. I'd like to add some info. - such as manufacturer and serial number / asset tag into the bios (there are fields for it), but I can't edit it through the normal BIOS menu. Any idea on how this can be accomplished?
SnapOverflow
You can try using IPMI commands to write the relevant information into the VPD… but good luck finding out exactly where you need to write. That's likely information specific to the particular motherboard model.I just needed to figure this out for my own purposes ;)
You should be able to use either:
ipmitool fru edit/read/write ...or
flshupdt(from Intel, for Intel motherboards)to update the FRU data.
However, your statement:
is incorrect - MAC addresses should be, by definition, unique. That would be an appropriate value to key off for inventory purposes.