1UNAME(3P) POSIX Programmer's Manual UNAME(3P)
2
6 This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual. The Linux
7 implementation of this interface may differ (consult the corresponding
8 Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior), or the interface may
9 not be implemented on Linux.
10
12 uname — get the name of the current system
13
15 #include <sys/utsname.h>
16 int uname(struct utsname *name);
18
20 The uname() function shall store information identifying the current
21 system in the structure pointed to by name.
22 The uname() function uses the utsname structure defined in
24 <sys/utsname.h>.
25 The uname() function shall return a string naming the current system in
27 the character array sysname. Similarly, nodename shall contain the
28 name of this node within an implementation-defined communications net‐
29 work. The arrays release and version shall further identify the operat‐
30 ing system. The array machine shall contain a name that identifies the
31 hardware that the system is running on.
32 The format of each member is implementation-defined.
34
36 Upon successful completion, a non-negative value shall be returned.
37 Otherwise, -1 shall be returned and errno set to indicate the error.
38
40 No errors are defined.
41 The following sections are informative.
43
45 None.
46
48 The inclusion of the nodename member in this structure does not imply
49 that it is sufficient information for interfacing to communications
50 networks.
51
53 The values of the structure members are not constrained to have any
54 relation to the version of this volume of POSIX.1‐2017 implemented in
55 the operating system. An application should instead depend on
56 _POSIX_VERSION and related constants defined in <unistd.h>.
57 This volume of POSIX.1‐2017 does not define the sizes of the members of
59 the structure and permits them to be of different sizes, although most
60 implementations define them all to be the same size: eight bytes plus
61 one byte for the string terminator. That size for nodename is not
62 enough for use with many networks.
63 The uname() function originated in System III, System V, and related
65 implementations, and it does not exist in Version 7 or 4.3 BSD. The
66 values it returns are set at system compile time in those historical
67 implementations.
68 4.3 BSD has gethostname() and gethostid(), which return a symbolic name
70 and a numeric value, respectively. There are related sethostname() and
71 sethostid() functions that are used to set the values the other two
72 functions return. The former functions are included in this specifica‐
73 tion, the latter are not.
74
76 None.
77
79 The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2017, <sys_utsname.h>
80
82 Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form
83 from IEEE Std 1003.1-2017, Standard for Information Technology -- Por‐
84 table Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifi‐
85 cations Issue 7, 2018 Edition, Copyright (C) 2018 by the Institute of
86 Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. In the
87 event of any discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and
88 The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard
89 is the referee document. The original Standard can be obtained online
90 at http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .
91 Any typographical or formatting errors that appear in this page are
93 most likely to have been introduced during the conversion of the source
94 files to man page format. To report such errors, see https://www.ker‐
95 nel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .
96IEEE/The Open Group 2017 UNAME(3P)