rpi-hwid — Raspberry Pi hardware identity

What is this Raspberry Pi wearing, what powers it, and what is soldered to it? rpi-hwid answers from the Pi itself, from evidence the firmware and kernel already expose but nothing collects: HAT ID EEPROMs (including the ones the firmware never reads), the Pi 5's own verdict on its USB-C supply, the PMIC's input and RTC-cell voltages, the fan header, the USB tree, and which network interfaces are soldered down. A separate module does the same for an FPGA board attached to the Pi. A collector runs it over ssh across a fleet, and a label generator turns the collected data into sticker labels that carry only what cannot change.

pip install rpi-hwid            # or: uv tool install rpi-hwid[labels]

rpi-hwid probe                  # on a Pi
rpi-hwid probe --json --fpga --jtag
rpi-hwid collect --out data/ -J jump.example.org rpi5-netv2 pi@10.21.1.10
rpi-hwid labels --data data/ --out labels.pdf
rpi-hwid name --netv2 0x00742c4e63b9085c
rpi-hwid revision c04170

The probe is one dependency-free file that runs on any Pi with python3 3.5 or later, so it can also be sent over ssh with nothing installed there:

ssh pi@host 'python3 -' --json < src/rpi_hwid/probe.py

It needs passwordless sudo for i2c-tools and vcgencmd.

What the probe reads, and what each signal proves

The verdict names the power source where the evidence allows (gpio-poe-hat, bonnet-poe, usbc-supply, usbc-pd-supply) and says ambiguous or undetermined where it does not: an EEPROM-less GPIO PoE HAT on a Pi 5 and a 3 A USB-C splitter read identically, as do an EEPROM-less, I2C-less HAT on a 3B+ and any splitter. The switch-side 802.3af class narrows those (the bonnet is class 3, the M.2 HAT+ (B) class 4, an af-only HAT is never class 4) but that is read from the switch, not the Pi.

FPGA boards (rpi_hwid.fpga)

Kept apart from the Pi probe because few people have one. From what the Pi sees without touching the FPGA: a NeTV2 running LitePCIe is PCIe 10ee:7024 with one 1 MiB BAR; an SQRL Acorn CLE-215+ is 1e24:021f (or 10ee:7011 under other gateware) with 128 KiB + 64 KiB BARs — BAR sizes come from sysfs and a BAR is never mapped, because that wedges a host; a Digilent Arty is its own FT2232 with a 210319… serial. With --jtag, openFPGALoader reads the idcode and Device DNA over the Arty's FT2232 or the host's GPIO harness (libgpiod, pins 27:22:4:17). With --flash, an Arty's SPI flash is identified by JEDEC id, which reloads the FPGA with openFPGALoader's bridge; note the S25FL128S and S25FL127S both answer 0x012018.

Names

rpi-hwid name derives short, distinct names from the immutable identifier: a NeTV2 from its Device DNA (netv2-grove), an Arty from its Digilent serial (arty-hawk). Both hash first, because the raw identifiers come in near-identical clusters. Arty names are a hash chain against a registry (pass --names registry.json), so adding a board never renames an old one.

Labels

rpi-hwid labels lays out 63.5 × 38.1 mm labels, 21 to an A4 sheet (the Avery L7160 grid), from a directory of collected documents: one per Pi (model, memory and revision from the revision code, serial up the edge, HAT band, a QR per soldered-down MAC), one per FPGA board (name, die, DNA or serial with a QR, flash where read), one per removable USB network adapter (descriptors, MAC with a QR). Print at 100 %. --outline draws the die-cut edges for an alignment print on plain paper.

The package ships only artwork it may: the public-domain USB trident. A --artwork DIR may add raspberry-pi.svg, alphamax.png, digilent.png and netv2.svg, which are trademarks of their owners (the Raspberry Pi logo is on the English Wikipedia file page; the Alphamax and Digilent marks are their GitHub organisation avatars); without them a label uses the maker's name in type.

Origin

Worked out on a fleet of Pi Zero W, 3B+, 4 and 5 hosts carrying NeTV2, Acorn and Arty boards, powered by a mix of Waveshare PoE HATs and external PoE splitters, in September 2026. The rules above are what those boards showed; a board that behaves differently is a bug report.