It is possible to extract the Linux serial number without using sudo?
I know it is possible to do in Windows: wmic bios get serialnumber and in
macOS: system_profiler | grep "r (system)". Both of them do not require root privileges.
In Linux this can be used: sudo dmidecode -s system-serial-number, but it needs sudo. Is there another way?
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Answer
dmidecode reads this information from physical memory, using /dev/mem, which requires root.
The same information is also provided by the Linux kernel via sysfs in a virtual directory, /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id.
Unfortunately, someone decided that all information in that virtual directory is open to anyone for reading, just not the serial numbers:
$ ls -l /sys/devices/virtual/dmi/id -r--r--r-- 1 root root 4096 Nov 25 17:12 bios_date -r--r--r-- 1 root root 4096 Nov 14 14:59 bios_vendor -r--r--r-- 1 root root 4096 Nov 25 17:12 bios_version -r--r--r-- 1 root root 4096 Nov 25 17:12 board_asset_tag -r--r--r-- 1 root root 4096 Nov 25 17:12 board_name -r-------- 1 root root 4096 Nov 25 17:12 board_serial -r--r--r-- 1 root root 4096 Nov 14 14:59 board_vendor -r--r--r-- 1 root root 4096 Nov 25 17:12 board_version -r--r--r-- 1 root root 4096 Nov 25 17:12 chassis_asset_tag -r-------- 1 root root 4096 Nov 25 17:12 chassis_serial -r--r--r-- 1 root root 4096 Nov 25 17:12 chassis_type -r--r--r-- 1 root root 4096 Nov 25 17:12 chassis_vendor -r--r--r-- 1 root root 4096 Nov 25 17:12 chassis_version -r--r--r-- 1 root root 4096 Nov 25 17:12 modalias drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 0 Nov 25 17:12 power -r--r--r-- 1 root root 4096 Nov 14 14:59 product_name -r-------- 1 root root 4096 Nov 25 17:12 product_serial -r-------- 1 root root 4096 Nov 14 14:59 product_uuid -r--r--r-- 1 root root 4096 Nov 14 14:59 product_version lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Nov 14 14:59 subsystem -> ../../../../class/dmi -r--r--r-- 1 root root 4096 Nov 14 14:59 sys_vendor -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4096 Nov 14 14:59 uevent
If you can install package hal (not installed by default on recent Ubuntu versions), this command will work for you as non-root:
lshal | grep system.hardware.serial system.hardware.serial = '<serial_number>' (string)
This works because package hal installs the hald daemon, which runs as root and collects this data, making it possible for lshal to read it as non-root.