1OS-RELEASE(5)                     os-release                     OS-RELEASE(5)
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3
4

NAME

6       os-release - Operating system identification
7

SYNOPSIS

9       /etc/os-release
10
11       /usr/lib/os-release
12

DESCRIPTION

14       The /etc/os-release and /usr/lib/os-release files contain operating
15       system identification data.
16
17       The basic file format of os-release is a newline-separated list of
18       environment-like shell-compatible variable assignments. It is possible
19       to source the configuration from shell scripts, however, beyond mere
20       variable assignments, no shell features are supported (this means
21       variable expansion is explicitly not supported), allowing applications
22       to read the file without implementing a shell compatible execution
23       engine. Variable assignment values must be enclosed in double or single
24       quotes if they include spaces, semicolons or other special characters
25       outside of A–Z, a–z, 0–9. Shell special characters ("$", quotes,
26       backslash, backtick) must be escaped with backslashes, following shell
27       style. All strings should be in UTF-8 format, and non-printable
28       characters should not be used. It is not supported to concatenate
29       multiple individually quoted strings. Lines beginning with "#" shall be
30       ignored as comments. Blank lines are permitted and ignored.
31
32       The file /etc/os-release takes precedence over /usr/lib/os-release.
33       Applications should check for the former, and exclusively use its data
34       if it exists, and only fall back to /usr/lib/os-release if it is
35       missing. Applications should not read data from both files at the same
36       time.  /usr/lib/os-release is the recommended place to store OS release
37       information as part of vendor trees.  /etc/os-release should be a
38       relative symlink to /usr/lib/os-release, to provide compatibility with
39       applications only looking at /etc. A relative symlink instead of an
40       absolute symlink is necessary to avoid breaking the link in a chroot or
41       initrd environment such as dracut.
42
43       os-release contains data that is defined by the operating system vendor
44       and should generally not be changed by the administrator.
45
46       As this file only encodes names and identifiers it should not be
47       localized.
48
49       The /etc/os-release and /usr/lib/os-release files might be symlinks to
50       other files, but it is important that the file is available from
51       earliest boot on, and hence must be located on the root file system.
52
53       For a longer rationale for os-release please refer to the Announcement
54       of /etc/os-release[1].
55

OPTIONS

57       The following OS identifications parameters may be set using
58       os-release:
59
60       NAME=
61           A string identifying the operating system, without a version
62           component, and suitable for presentation to the user. If not set,
63           defaults to "NAME=Linux". Example: "NAME=Fedora" or "NAME="Debian
64           GNU/Linux"".
65
66       VERSION=
67           A string identifying the operating system version, excluding any OS
68           name information, possibly including a release code name, and
69           suitable for presentation to the user. This field is optional.
70           Example: "VERSION=17" or "VERSION="17 (Beefy Miracle)"".
71
72       ID=
73           A lower-case string (no spaces or other characters outside of 0–9,
74           a–z, ".", "_" and "-") identifying the operating system, excluding
75           any version information and suitable for processing by scripts or
76           usage in generated filenames. If not set, defaults to "ID=linux".
77           Example: "ID=fedora" or "ID=debian".
78
79       ID_LIKE=
80           A space-separated list of operating system identifiers in the same
81           syntax as the ID= setting. It should list identifiers of operating
82           systems that are closely related to the local operating system in
83           regards to packaging and programming interfaces, for example
84           listing one or more OS identifiers the local OS is a derivative
85           from. An OS should generally only list other OS identifiers it
86           itself is a derivative of, and not any OSes that are derived from
87           it, though symmetric relationships are possible. Build scripts and
88           similar should check this variable if they need to identify the
89           local operating system and the value of ID= is not recognized.
90           Operating systems should be listed in order of how closely the
91           local operating system relates to the listed ones, starting with
92           the closest. This field is optional. Example: for an operating
93           system with "ID=centos", an assignment of "ID_LIKE="rhel fedora""
94           would be appropriate. For an operating system with "ID=ubuntu", an
95           assignment of "ID_LIKE=debian" is appropriate.
96
97       VERSION_CODENAME=
98           A lower-case string (no spaces or other characters outside of 0–9,
99           a–z, ".", "_" and "-") identifying the operating system release
100           code name, excluding any OS name information or release version,
101           and suitable for processing by scripts or usage in generated
102           filenames. This field is optional and may not be implemented on all
103           systems. Examples: "VERSION_CODENAME=buster",
104           "VERSION_CODENAME=xenial"
105
106       VERSION_ID=
107           A lower-case string (mostly numeric, no spaces or other characters
108           outside of 0–9, a–z, ".", "_" and "-") identifying the operating
109           system version, excluding any OS name information or release code
110           name, and suitable for processing by scripts or usage in generated
111           filenames. This field is optional. Example: "VERSION_ID=17" or
112           "VERSION_ID=11.04".
113
114       PRETTY_NAME=
115           A pretty operating system name in a format suitable for
116           presentation to the user. May or may not contain a release code
117           name or OS version of some kind, as suitable. If not set, defaults
118           to "PRETTY_NAME="Linux"". Example: "PRETTY_NAME="Fedora 17 (Beefy
119           Miracle)"".
120
121       ANSI_COLOR=
122           A suggested presentation color when showing the OS name on the
123           console. This should be specified as string suitable for inclusion
124           in the ESC [ m ANSI/ECMA-48 escape code for setting graphical
125           rendition. This field is optional. Example: "ANSI_COLOR="0;31"" for
126           red, or "ANSI_COLOR="1;34"" for light blue.
127
128       CPE_NAME=
129           A CPE name for the operating system, in URI binding syntax,
130           following the Common Platform Enumeration Specification[2] as
131           proposed by the NIST. This field is optional. Example:
132           "CPE_NAME="cpe:/o:fedoraproject:fedora:17""
133
134       HOME_URL=, DOCUMENTATION_URL=, SUPPORT_URL=, BUG_REPORT_URL=,
135       PRIVACY_POLICY_URL=
136           Links to resources on the Internet related to the operating system.
137           HOME_URL= should refer to the homepage of the operating system, or
138           alternatively some homepage of the specific version of the
139           operating system.  DOCUMENTATION_URL= should refer to the main
140           documentation page for this operating system.  SUPPORT_URL= should
141           refer to the main support page for the operating system, if there
142           is any. This is primarily intended for operating systems which
143           vendors provide support for.  BUG_REPORT_URL= should refer to the
144           main bug reporting page for the operating system, if there is any.
145           This is primarily intended for operating systems that rely on
146           community QA.  PRIVACY_POLICY_URL= should refer to the main privacy
147           policy page for the operating system, if there is any. These
148           settings are optional, and providing only some of these settings is
149           common. These URLs are intended to be exposed in "About this
150           system" UIs behind links with captions such as "About this
151           Operating System", "Obtain Support", "Report a Bug", or "Privacy
152           Policy". The values should be in RFC3986 format[3], and should be
153           "http:" or "https:" URLs, and possibly "mailto:" or "tel:". Only
154           one URL shall be listed in each setting. If multiple resources need
155           to be referenced, it is recommended to provide an online landing
156           page linking all available resources. Examples:
157           "HOME_URL="https://fedoraproject.org/"" and
158           "BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugzilla.redhat.com/""
159
160       BUILD_ID=
161           A string uniquely identifying the system image used as the origin
162           for a distribution (it is not updated with system updates). The
163           field can be identical between different VERSION_IDs as BUILD_ID is
164           an only a unique identifier to a specific version. Distributions
165           that release each update as a new version would only need to use
166           VERSION_ID as each build is already distinct based on the
167           VERSION_ID. This field is optional. Example:
168           "BUILD_ID="2013-03-20.3"" or "BUILD_ID=201303203".
169
170       VARIANT=
171           A string identifying a specific variant or edition of the operating
172           system suitable for presentation to the user. This field may be
173           used to inform the user that the configuration of this system is
174           subject to a specific divergent set of rules or default
175           configuration settings. This field is optional and may not be
176           implemented on all systems. Examples: "VARIANT="Server Edition"",
177           "VARIANT="Smart Refrigerator Edition"" Note: this field is for
178           display purposes only. The VARIANT_ID field should be used for
179           making programmatic decisions.
180
181       VARIANT_ID=
182           A lower-case string (no spaces or other characters outside of 0–9,
183           a–z, ".", "_" and "-"), identifying a specific variant or edition
184           of the operating system. This may be interpreted by other packages
185           in order to determine a divergent default configuration. This field
186           is optional and may not be implemented on all systems. Examples:
187           "VARIANT_ID=server", "VARIANT_ID=embedded"
188
189       LOGO=
190           A string, specifying the name of an icon as defined by
191           freedesktop.org Icon Theme Specification[4]. This can be used by
192           graphical applications to display an operating system's or
193           distributor's logo. This field is optional and may not necessarily
194           be implemented on all systems. Examples: "LOGO=fedora-logo",
195           "LOGO=distributor-logo-opensuse"
196
197       If you are reading this file from C code or a shell script to determine
198       the OS or a specific version of it, use the ID and VERSION_ID fields,
199       possibly with ID_LIKE as fallback for ID. When looking for an OS
200       identification string for presentation to the user use the PRETTY_NAME
201       field.
202
203       Note that operating system vendors may choose not to provide version
204       information, for example to accommodate for rolling releases. In this
205       case, VERSION and VERSION_ID may be unset. Applications should not rely
206       on these fields to be set.
207
208       Operating system vendors may extend the file format and introduce new
209       fields. It is highly recommended to prefix new fields with an OS
210       specific name in order to avoid name clashes. Applications reading this
211       file must ignore unknown fields. Example:
212       "DEBIAN_BTS="debbugs://bugs.debian.org/""
213

EXAMPLE

215           NAME=Fedora
216           VERSION="17 (Beefy Miracle)"
217           ID=fedora
218           VERSION_ID=17
219           PRETTY_NAME="Fedora 17 (Beefy Miracle)"
220           ANSI_COLOR="0;34"
221           CPE_NAME="cpe:/o:fedoraproject:fedora:17"
222           HOME_URL="https://fedoraproject.org/"
223           BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugzilla.redhat.com/"
224

SEE ALSO

226       systemd(1), lsb_release(1), hostname(5), machine-id(5), machine-info(5)
227

NOTES

229        1. Announcement of /etc/os-release
230           http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/os-release
231
232        2. Common Platform Enumeration Specification
233           http://scap.nist.gov/specifications/cpe/
234
235        3. RFC3986 format
236           https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3986
237
238        4. freedesktop.org Icon Theme Specification
239           http://standards.freedesktop.org/icon-theme-spec/latest
240
241
242
243systemd 245                                                      OS-RELEASE(5)
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