How to Check the CPU Type in FreeBSD (sysctl and dmesg)

How to find out which processor is installed in a FreeBSD server.

Run this command:

sysctl -a | egrep -i 'hw.machine|hw.model|hw.ncpu'

The output looks like this:

hw.machine: amd64
hw.model: Dual-Core AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 2216
hw.ncpu: 2
hw.machine_arch: amd64

(By the way, here is a note on how to check the processor in Linux.)

Another example:

hw.machine: amd64
hw.model: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1230 V2 @ 3.30GHz
hw.ncpu: 4
hw.machine_arch: amd64

The output shows:

• the processor vendor;
• the model;
• the number of cores allocated to the system (it can differ, for example, under virtualization);
• the system architecture.

You can also find the CPU model in FreeBSD like this:

grep -i cpu /var/run/dmesg.boot

Example output:

CPU: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1230 V2 @ 3.30GHz (3292.52-MHz K8-class CPU)
FreeBSD/SMP: Multiprocessor System Detected: 6 CPUs

(I deliberately changed the number of cores in the ESXi hypervisor, which is why it shows 6. The E3-1230 V2 has 4 physical cores and 8 threads.)

There are many utilities for detecting server hardware, but why install anything if one of these commands is enough?