serial-number/README.md

Reads the machine's serial number (a.k.a. service/asset tag) or Amazon EC2 instance-id

Serial Number
=============

A simple Node.js module for accessing the serial number (a.k.a. Dell Service
Tag, asset tag) of the local machine. Supports Linux, Mac (OS X), Windows, and
FreeBSD. On Amazon EC2 instances, it will return the instance-id.


Installation
------------
`npm install serial-number`

And/or install globally for a `serial-number` shell command:
`[sudo] npm install -g serial-number`


Usage
-----
The serial number value is retrieved from the system asynchronously and passed
to a callback.

```javascript
var serialNumber = require('serial-number');

serialNumber(function (err, value) {
	console.log(value);
});
```

If the serial number turns out to be invalid (common on VMs), the system's UUID
value will be provided as a fallback. To instead try to get the UUID on the
first attempt, set the `preferUUID` flag:

```javascript
serialNumber.preferUUID = true;
```

To prefix the system command with `sudo` use the `useSudo` method:

```javascript
serialNumber.useSudo(function (err, value) {
	console.log(value);
});
```

For the CLI command it's just

```sh
$ serial-number
A12B3C4DE5FG
```

The CLI provides a couple options:

* `--uuid`: Equivalent to the `preferUUID` setting as above.
* `--cmdprefix <prefix>`: Sets a string to be prefixed ahead of the shell
command to be run. Can be used to specify a path to the `dmidecode` binary on
\*nix systems if it won't be found in the environment `$PATH`

```sh
$ serial-number --uuid --cmdprefix "/usr/sbin/"
1234AABB-C5DE-678F-G9HI-J01K2LM34N5A
```

License
-------
[ISC](https://raw.github.com/es128/serial-number/master/LICENSE)