Desktop Management Interface
The Desktop Management Interface (DMI ) is a standardized framework to identify and manage the components of a desktop computer, laptop or server. From the user's point of view it is essentially a provided by the BIOS table from which information about the BIOS and the system in a standardized way, can be read. Previously this information was so completely not available from a standard source.
DMI is a part of the System Management BIOS Specification ( SMBIOS ). SMBIOS was created to represent data structures and access methods for storing and retrieving information on the PC.
Since 1999, OEMs and BIOS vendors have to support the DMI standard to obtain a Microsoft certificate.
DMI was the first desktop management standard. It has been created by the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF ).
The DMI website is a directory of all information on DMI, from specification through to tools that support the registration DMI - certified products. Due to the rapid progress in technologies such as the DMTF Common Information Model (CIM), the DMTF has defined an " End of Life " process for the DMI, which expired on 31 March 2005.
Fully DMI-compliant PCs can also be monitored from a central management console over the network, but this depends on the supporting protocols from, such as SNMP.
Definition
DMI is an abstraction layer between the system components and the software that manage them. The System Management BIOS is an extension of the Basic Input Output System (BIOS), which transmits this information to the operating system.
DMI on Linux
The Linux kernel has built a DMI decoder and certain workarounds are enabled or disabled due to DMI information. To read the complete DMI information, there is the tool dmidecode.