1OS-RELEASE(5)                     os-release                     OS-RELEASE(5)
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3
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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, "ANSI_COLOR="1;34"" for light blue, or
127           "ANSI_COLOR="0;38;2;60;110;180"" for Fedora blue.
128
129       CPE_NAME=
130           A CPE name for the operating system, in URI binding syntax,
131           following the Common Platform Enumeration Specification[2] as
132           proposed by the NIST. This field is optional. Example:
133           "CPE_NAME="cpe:/o:fedoraproject:fedora:17""
134
135       HOME_URL=, DOCUMENTATION_URL=, SUPPORT_URL=, BUG_REPORT_URL=,
136       PRIVACY_POLICY_URL=
137           Links to resources on the Internet related to the operating system.
138           HOME_URL= should refer to the homepage of the operating system, or
139           alternatively some homepage of the specific version of the
140           operating system.  DOCUMENTATION_URL= should refer to the main
141           documentation page for this operating system.  SUPPORT_URL= should
142           refer to the main support page for the operating system, if there
143           is any. This is primarily intended for operating systems which
144           vendors provide support for.  BUG_REPORT_URL= should refer to the
145           main bug reporting page for the operating system, if there is any.
146           This is primarily intended for operating systems that rely on
147           community QA.  PRIVACY_POLICY_URL= should refer to the main privacy
148           policy page for the operating system, if there is any. These
149           settings are optional, and providing only some of these settings is
150           common. These URLs are intended to be exposed in "About this
151           system" UIs behind links with captions such as "About this
152           Operating System", "Obtain Support", "Report a Bug", or "Privacy
153           Policy". The values should be in RFC3986 format[3], and should be
154           "http:" or "https:" URLs, and possibly "mailto:" or "tel:". Only
155           one URL shall be listed in each setting. If multiple resources need
156           to be referenced, it is recommended to provide an online landing
157           page linking all available resources. Examples:
158           "HOME_URL="https://fedoraproject.org/"" and
159           "BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugzilla.redhat.com/""
160
161       BUILD_ID=
162           A string uniquely identifying the system image used as the origin
163           for a distribution (it is not updated with system updates). The
164           field can be identical between different VERSION_IDs as BUILD_ID is
165           an only a unique identifier to a specific version. Distributions
166           that release each update as a new version would only need to use
167           VERSION_ID as each build is already distinct based on the
168           VERSION_ID. This field is optional. Example:
169           "BUILD_ID="2013-03-20.3"" or "BUILD_ID=201303203".
170
171       VARIANT=
172           A string identifying a specific variant or edition of the operating
173           system suitable for presentation to the user. This field may be
174           used to inform the user that the configuration of this system is
175           subject to a specific divergent set of rules or default
176           configuration settings. This field is optional and may not be
177           implemented on all systems. Examples: "VARIANT="Server Edition"",
178           "VARIANT="Smart Refrigerator Edition"" Note: this field is for
179           display purposes only. The VARIANT_ID field should be used for
180           making programmatic decisions.
181
182       VARIANT_ID=
183           A lower-case string (no spaces or other characters outside of 0–9,
184           a–z, ".", "_" and "-"), identifying a specific variant or edition
185           of the operating system. This may be interpreted by other packages
186           in order to determine a divergent default configuration. This field
187           is optional and may not be implemented on all systems. Examples:
188           "VARIANT_ID=server", "VARIANT_ID=embedded"
189
190       LOGO=
191           A string, specifying the name of an icon as defined by
192           freedesktop.org Icon Theme Specification[4]. This can be used by
193           graphical applications to display an operating system's or
194           distributor's logo. This field is optional and may not necessarily
195           be implemented on all systems. Examples: "LOGO=fedora-logo",
196           "LOGO=distributor-logo-opensuse"
197
198       DEFAULT_HOSTNAME=
199           A string specifying the hostname if hostname(5) is not present and
200           no other configuration source specifies the hostname. Must be
201           either a single DNS label (a string composed of 7-bit ASCII
202           lower-case characters and no spaces or dots, limited to the format
203           allowed for DNS domain name labels), or a sequence of such labels
204           separated by single dots that forms a valid DNS FQDN. The hostname
205           must be at most 64 characters, which is a Linux limitation (DNS
206           allows longer names).
207
208           See org.freedesktop.hostname1(5) for a description of how systemd-
209           hostnamed.service(8) determines the fallback hostname.
210
211       SYSEXT_LEVEL=
212           A lower-case string (mostly numeric, no spaces or other characters
213           outside of 0–9, a–z, ".", "_" and "-") identifying the operating
214           system extensions support level, to indicate which extension images
215           are supported (See: systemd-sysext(8)). Example: "SYSEXT_LEVEL=2"
216           or "SYSEXT_LEVEL=15.14".
217
218       If you are reading this file from C code or a shell script to determine
219       the OS or a specific version of it, use the ID and VERSION_ID fields,
220       possibly with ID_LIKE as fallback for ID. When looking for an OS
221       identification string for presentation to the user use the PRETTY_NAME
222       field.
223
224       Note that operating system vendors may choose not to provide version
225       information, for example to accommodate for rolling releases. In this
226       case, VERSION and VERSION_ID may be unset. Applications should not rely
227       on these fields to be set.
228
229       Operating system vendors may extend the file format and introduce new
230       fields. It is highly recommended to prefix new fields with an OS
231       specific name in order to avoid name clashes. Applications reading this
232       file must ignore unknown fields. Example:
233       "DEBIAN_BTS="debbugs://bugs.debian.org/""
234
235       Container and sandbox runtime managers may make the host's
236       identification data available to applications by providing the host's
237       /etc/os-release (if available, otherwise /usr/lib/os-release as a
238       fallback) as /run/host/os-release.
239

EXAMPLE

241           NAME=Fedora
242           VERSION="32 (Workstation Edition)"
243           ID=fedora
244           VERSION_ID=32
245           PRETTY_NAME="Fedora 32 (Workstation Edition)"
246           ANSI_COLOR="0;38;2;60;110;180"
247           LOGO=fedora-logo-icon
248           CPE_NAME="cpe:/o:fedoraproject:fedora:32"
249           HOME_URL="https://fedoraproject.org/"
250           DOCUMENTATION_URL="https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/fedora/f32/system-administrators-guide/"
251           SUPPORT_URL="https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicating_and_getting_help"
252           BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugzilla.redhat.com/"
253           REDHAT_BUGZILLA_PRODUCT="Fedora"
254           REDHAT_BUGZILLA_PRODUCT_VERSION=32
255           REDHAT_SUPPORT_PRODUCT="Fedora"
256           REDHAT_SUPPORT_PRODUCT_VERSION=32
257           PRIVACY_POLICY_URL="https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal:PrivacyPolicy"
258           VARIANT="Workstation Edition"
259           VARIANT_ID=workstation
260

SEE ALSO

262       systemd(1), lsb_release(1), hostname(5), machine-id(5), machine-info(5)
263

NOTES

265        1. Announcement of /etc/os-release
266           http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/os-release
267
268        2. Common Platform Enumeration Specification
269           http://scap.nist.gov/specifications/cpe/
270
271        3. RFC3986 format
272           https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3986
273
274        4. freedesktop.org Icon Theme Specification
275           http://standards.freedesktop.org/icon-theme-spec/latest
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279systemd 248                                                      OS-RELEASE(5)
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