How to discover what Linux distribution is in use
Sometimes I need to access some servers running Linux (or maybe another Unix-like SO), but I don’t know how to verify which distribution is in use on the server (there are times that even the «responsible» person for the server doesn’t know). Is there an easy and reliable way to discover that, one that is uniform and consistent across all of them?
12 Answers 12
lsb_release -i may work for you.
More detail is available with lsb_release -a
lsb_release -d gave a much better result for me. -i gave «Distributor ID: CentOS». -d gave «Description: CentOS release 5.2 (Final)».
Most distributions put a release file in /etc/ (like /etc/redhat-release , /etc/gentoo-release , etc.) which usually has the version number of your distribution in it.
This is, annoyingly, a harder problem than it appears.
For Linux systems, use lsb_release.
$ lsb_release --all No LSB modules are available. Distributor ID: Ubuntu Description: Ubuntu 8.04.1 Release: 8.04 Codename: hardy $ lsb_release -i Distributor ID: Ubuntu This has the limitation that lsb_release works only for Linux releases.
For all Unix systems, you can also parse up uname.
$ uname -a Linux blue-laptop 2.6.24-21-generic #1 SMP Tue Oct 21 23:43:45 UTC 2008 i686 GNU/Linux You can find some information about the systems and distributions at the uname Wikipedia page.
More narrowly, lsb_release only works on Linux systems which attempt to adhere to the Linux Standard Base specifications.
You should ask yourself if you really need to know which distro is in use (perhaps because you want to build a package specific for this distribution). In many other cases it is a far better idea, to just test and see if the features you need are there or not. This might look like a lot more work because you have to test every feature one by one but this way, your software becomes far more flexible.
There are different commands you can use to check which distribution is in use. Here I am mentioning only 5 of them.
lsb_release provides distribution-specific information. Whereas -a display all information about the distribution. You can also use -d which only shows the description.
uname also provides system information. Whereas -a display all information. You can use man uname for other options.
You can also use cat command to print out all specific release information from etc folder. This command actually reads the lsb-release and os-release files from the /etc folder.
This command reads the issue file from the /etc folder.
This command reads the version file from the /proc folder. /proc folder contains information about system process.
How to know which Linux Distribution I’m using? [closed]
Moved to https://superuser.com/questions/80251/how-to-know-which-linux-distribution-im-using How to know which Linux Distribution I’m using? uname -a gives Linux xxxxxx.net 2.6.9-42.0.3.EL.wh1smp #1 SMP Fri Aug 14 15:48:17 MDT 2009 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux How can I know this is Ubuntu/Debian/Fedora or Redhat? I uses /etc/init.d/serviced restart for restarting serevices, seems it is not Redhat family Update:
[~]$ cat /etc/issue cat: /etc/issue: No such file or directory [~]$ cat /etc/issue.net cat: /etc/issue.net: No such file or directory [~]$ lsb_release -a -sh: lsb_release: command not found [~]$ cat /etc/*-release cat: /etc/*-release: No such file or directory [~]$ cat /etc/*-version cat: /etc/*-version: No such file or directory [~]$ cat /etc/*release cat: /etc/*release: No such file or directory [~]$ cat /etc/*_release cat: /etc/*_release: No such file or directory [~]$ cat /etc/*version cat: /etc/*version: No such file or directory [~]$ If you are looking for a reliable way to make your program behave accordingly on any given distribution, I’d suggest updating your question before its migrated.
6 Answers 6
You could also try /etc/*-version
[itflux][~]$ cat /etc/*-release cat: /etc/*-release: No such file or directory [itflux][~]$ cat /etc/*-version cat: /etc/*-version: No such file or directory
If you have lsb_release command,
will tell you (or just use lsb_release -i ).
Edit: Looks like you’re on a Red Hat system. A google search on your uname output suggests so. This is not programmatic, of course!
lsb_relase was created to ease the pain of determining the distro easily from within a program. A lot of systems out in the wild and still in use lack this altogether.
You’re right. If someone is using that old a distribution, the first step should probably be to upgrade to a more recent version! 🙂
/etc/issue or /etc/issue.net give a good clue. Newer distros provide /etc/lsb-release which make it easier to determine exact strings progmatically, i.e. distro name / major & minor release / web site, etc.
In the absence of /etc/lsb-release, its much more difficult, hence the creation of lsb-release.
As Alok said, it looks like you are on a rather ancient (or extremely sparse) system. I don’t think this is a case that you can (reliably) progmatically determine with a few lines of code.
If all else fails, check to see what kind of package manager is in use (apt / rpm / others), check to see if /etc/init.d is a symlink (rpm / RH distros) or a directory (debian based distros) .. and you have a pretty good clue as to what you can expect to be present in the root file system as far as structure.
Best way to find the OS name and version on a Unix/Linux platform
But it does not seem to be the best solution, as LSB_RELEASE support is no longer for RHEL 7.
Is there a way that will work on any Unix or Linux platform?
uname is in most unix environments and guaranteed to be on every LSB compliant linux distro: refspecs.linuxfoundation.org/LSB_2.0.1/LSB-Core/LSB-Core/…
@Niraj — By reading the manpage linux.die.net/man/1/uname and grokking its output (assuming it is supported in RH6.5) . either way there is no (single) portable way to get this because it is mostly irrelevant info. Portable programs should probe for required features, not use some whitelist of prechecked distros.
10 Answers 10
This work fine for all Linux environments.
$ cat /etc/*-release DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu DISTRIB_RELEASE=10.04 DISTRIB_CODENAME=lucid DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 10.04.4 LTS" $ cat /etc/*-release DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu DISTRIB_RELEASE=12.04 DISTRIB_CODENAME=precise DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 12.04.4 LTS" NAME="Ubuntu" VERSION="12.04.4 LTS, Precise Pangolin" ID=ubuntu ID_LIKE=debian PRETTY_NAME="Ubuntu precise (12.04.4 LTS)" VERSION_ID="12.04" $ cat /etc/*-release Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 6.5 (Santiago) Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 6.5 (Santiago) #!/bin/sh # Detects which OS and if it is Linux then it will detect which Linux # Distribution. OS=`uname -s` REV=`uname -r` MACH=`uname -m` GetVersionFromFile() < VERSION=`cat $1 | tr "\n" ' ' | sed s/.*VERSION.*=\ // ` >if [ "$" = "SunOS" ] ; then OS=Solaris ARCH=`uname -p` OSSTR="$ $($ `uname -v`)" elif [ "$" = "AIX" ] ; then OSSTR="$ `oslevel` (`oslevel -r`)" elif [ "$" = "Linux" ] ; then KERNEL=`uname -r` if [ -f /etc/redhat-release ] ; then DIST='RedHat' PSUEDONAME=`cat /etc/redhat-release | sed s/.*\(// | sed s/\)//` REV=`cat /etc/redhat-release | sed s/.*release\ // | sed s/\ .*//` elif [ -f /etc/SuSE-release ] ; then DIST=`cat /etc/SuSE-release | tr "\n" ' '| sed s/VERSION.*//` REV=`cat /etc/SuSE-release | tr "\n" ' ' | sed s/.*=\ //` elif [ -f /etc/mandrake-release ] ; then DIST='Mandrake' PSUEDONAME=`cat /etc/mandrake-release | sed s/.*\(// | sed s/\)//` REV=`cat /etc/mandrake-release | sed s/.*release\ // | sed s/\ .*//` elif [ -f /etc/debian_version ] ; then DIST="Debian `cat /etc/debian_version`" REV="" fi if [ -f /etc/UnitedLinux-release ] ; then DIST="$[`cat /etc/UnitedLinux-release | tr "\n" ' ' | sed s/VERSION.*//`]" fi OSSTR="$ $ $($ $ $)" fi echo $
The script is useful but for linux it is showing ==Linux RedHat version(Final 2.6.32-431.el6.x86_64 x86_64) .my redhat version is 6.5 but it is not showing in output ?
I tested on RHEL6.3 It is showing output as Linux RedHat 6.3(Santiago 2.6.32-279.22.1.el6.x86_64 x86_64)
Following command worked out for me nicely. It gives you the OS name and version.
The «lsb_release» command provides a certain Linux Standard Base (LSB) and distribution-specific information.
So using the below command we can get the Operating system name and operating system version.
«lsb_release -a«
This command gives you a description of your operating system:
In every distribution, it has different files, so I list the most common ones:
---- CentOS Linux distribution `cat /proc/version` ---- Debian Linux distribution `cat /etc/debian_version` ---- Redhat Linux distribution `cat /etc/redhat-release` ---- Ubuntu Linux distribution `cat /etc/issue` or `cat /etc/lsb-release` In the last one, /etc/issue didn’t exist, so I tried the second one and it returned the right answer.
With quotes:
cat /etc/*-release | grep "PRETTY_NAME" | sed 's/PRETTY_NAME=//g' Without quotes:
cat /etc/*-release | grep "PRETTY_NAME" | sed 's/PRETTY_NAME=//g' | sed 's/"//g' @PeterMortensen in /etc/*-release file original value is stored with double quotes. if you want to save it in database most probably you would want to remove those double quotes as well. 🙂
My own take at @kvivek’s script, with more easily machine parsable output:
#!/bin/sh # Outputs OS Name, Version & misc. info in a machine-readable way. # See also NeoFetch for a more professional and elaborate bash script: # https://github.com/dylanaraps/neofetch SEP="," PRINT_HEADER=false print_help() < echo "`basename $0` - Outputs OS Name, Version & misc. info" echo "in a machine-readable way." echo echo "Usage:" echo " `basename $0` [OPTIONS]" echo "Options:" echo " -h, --help print this help message" echo " -n, --names print a header line, naming the fields" echo " -s, --separator SEP overrides the default field-separator ('$SEP') with the supplied one" ># parse command-line args while [ $# -gt 0 ] do arg="$1" shift # past switch case "$" in -h|--help) print_help exit 0 ;; -n|--names) PRINT_HEADER=true ;; -s|--separator) SEP="$1" shift # past value ;; *) # non-/unknown option echo "Unknown switch '$arg'" >&2 print_help ;; esac done OS=`uname -s` DIST="N/A" REV=`uname -r` MACH=`uname -m` PSUEDONAME="N/A" GetVersionFromFile() < VERSION=`cat $1 | tr "\n" ' ' | sed s/.*VERSION.*=\ // ` >if [ "$" = "SunOS" ] ; then DIST=Solaris DIST_VER=`uname -v` # also: cat /etc/release elif [ "$" = "AIX" ] ; then DIST="$" DIST_VER=`oslevel -r` elif [ "$" = "Linux" ] ; then if [ -f /etc/redhat-release ] ; then DIST='RedHat' PSUEDONAME=`sed -e 's/.*\(//' -e 's/\)//' /etc/redhat-release ` DIST_VER=`sed -e 's/.*release\ //' -e 's/\ .*//' /etc/redhat-release ` elif [ -f /etc/SuSE-release ] ; then DIST=`cat /etc/SuSE-release | tr "\n" ' '| sed s/VERSION.*//` DIST_VER=`cat /etc/SuSE-release | tr "\n" ' ' | sed s/.*=\ //` elif [ -f /etc/mandrake-release ] ; then DIST='Mandrake' PSUEDONAME=`sed -e 's/.*\(//' -e 's/\)//' /etc/mandrake-release` DIST_VER=`sed -e 's/.*release\ //' -e 's/\ .*//' /etc/mandrake-release` elif [ -f /etc/debian_version ] ; then DIST="Debian" DIST_VER=`cat /etc/debian_version` PSUEDONAME=`lsb_release -a 2> /dev/null | grep '^Codename:' | sed -e 's/.*[[:space:]]//'` #elif [ -f /etc/gentoo-release ] ; then #TODO #elif [ -f /etc/slackware-version ] ; then #TODO elif [ -f /etc/issue ] ; then # We use this indirection because /etc/issue may look like # "Debian GNU/Linux 10 \n \l" ISSUE=`cat /etc/issue` ISSUE=`echo -e "$" | head -n 1 | sed -e 's/[[:space:]]\+$//'` DIST=`echo -e "$" | sed -e 's/[[:space:]].*//'` DIST_VER=`echo -e "$" | sed -e 's/.*[[:space:]]//'` fi if [ -f /etc/UnitedLinux-release ] ; then DIST="$[`cat /etc/UnitedLinux-release | tr "\n" ' ' | sed s/VERSION.*//`]" fi # NOTE `sed -e 's/.*(//' -e 's/).*//' /proc/version` # is an option that worked ~ 2010 and earlier fi if $PRINT_HEADER then echo "OS$Distribution$Distribution-Version$Pseudo-Name$Kernel-Revision$Machine-Architecture" fi echo "$$$$$$$$$$$" NOTE: Only tested on Debian 11
Example Runs
No args
Linux,Debian,10.0,buster,4.19.0-5-amd64,x86_64 Header with names and custom separator
OS | Distribution | Distribution-Version | Pseudo-Name | Kernel-Revision | Machine-Architecture Linux | Debian | 10.0 | buster | 4.19.0-5-amd64 | x86_64