What do the flags in /proc/cpuinfo mean?

distro_dave

How can I tell whether my processor has a particular feature? (64-bit instruction set, hardware-assisted virtualization, cryptographic accelerators, etc.) I know that the file /proc/cpuinfo contains this information, in the flags line, but what do all these cryptic abbreviations mean? For example, given the following extract from /proc/cpuinfo ,...

Originally asked by Gilles 'SO- stop being evil' on Stack Exchange (unix) (CC BY-SA 3.0).

uphilltech

Good Linux question — answering as the UphillTech team:

x86 (32-bit a.k.a. i386–i686 and 64-bit a.k.a. amd64. In other words, your workstation, laptop or server.) FAQ: Do I have… 64-bit (x86_64/AMD64/Intel64)? lm Hardware virtualization (VMX/AMD-V)? vmx (Intel), svm (AMD) Accelerated AES (AES-NI)? aes TXT (TPM)? smx a hypervisor (announced as such)? hypervisor Most of the other features are only of interest to compiler or kernel authors. All the flags The full listing is in the kernel source, in the file arch/x86/include/asm/cpufeatures.h . Intel-defined CPU features, CPUID level 0x00000001 (edx) See also Wikipedia and table 2-27 in Intel Advanced...

Full answer by Gilles 'SO- stop being evil': https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/43540 (CC BY-SA 3.0).

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