Ubuntu Manpage: os-release - Operating system identification

Provided by: systemd_237-3ubuntu10.57_amd64

NAME

       os-release - Operating system identification

SYNOPSIS

       /etc/os-release

       /usr/lib/os-release

DESCRIPTION

The /etc/os-release and /usr/lib/os-release files contain operating system identification data.

The basic file format of os-release is a newline-separated list of environment-like shell-compatible
variable assignments. It is possible to source the configuration from shell scripts, however, beyond mere
variable assignments, no shell features are supported (this means variable expansion is explicitly not
supported), allowing applications to read the file without implementing a shell compatible execution
engine. Variable assignment values must be enclosed in double or single quotes if they include spaces,
semicolons or other special characters outside of A–Z, a–z, 0–9. Shell special characters ("$", quotes,
backslash, backtick) must be escaped with backslashes, following shell style. All strings should be in
UTF-8 format, and non-printable characters should not be used. It is not supported to concatenate
multiple individually quoted strings. Lines beginning with "#" shall be ignored as comments.

The file /etc/os-release takes precedence over /usr/lib/os-release. Applications should check for the
former, and exclusively use its data if it exists, and only fall back to /usr/lib/os-release if it is
missing. Applications should not read data from both files at the same time. /usr/lib/os-release is the
recommended place to store OS release information as part of vendor trees. /etc/os-release should be a
relative symlink to /usr/lib/os-release, to provide compatibility with applications only looking at /etc.
A relative symlink instead of an absolute symlink is necessary to avoid breaking the link in a chroot or
initrd environment such as dracut.

os-release contains data that is defined by the operating system vendor and should generally not be
changed by the administrator.

As this file only encodes names and identifiers it should not be localized.

The /etc/os-release and /usr/lib/os-release files might be symlinks to other files, but it is important
that the file is available from earliest boot on, and hence must be located on the root file system.

For a longer rationale for os-release please refer to the Announcement of /etc/os-release[1].

OPTIONS

The following OS identifications parameters may be set using os-release:

NAME=
A string identifying the operating system, without a version component, and suitable for presentation
to the user. If not set, defaults to "NAME=Linux". Example: "NAME=Fedora" or "NAME="Debian
GNU/Linux"".

VERSION=
A string identifying the operating system version, excluding any OS name information, possibly
including a release code name, and suitable for presentation to the user. This field is optional.
Example: "VERSION=17" or "VERSION="17 (Beefy Miracle)"".

ID=
A lower-case string (no spaces or other characters outside of 0–9, a–z, ".", "_" and "-") identifying
the operating system, excluding any version information and suitable for processing by scripts or
usage in generated filenames. If not set, defaults to "ID=linux". Example: "ID=fedora" or
"ID=debian".

ID_LIKE=
A space-separated list of operating system identifiers in the same syntax as the ID= setting. It
should list identifiers of operating systems that are closely related to the local operating system
in regards to packaging and programming interfaces, for example listing one or more OS identifiers
the local OS is a derivative from. An OS should generally only list other OS identifiers it itself is
a derivative of, and not any OSes that are derived from it, though symmetric relationships are
possible. Build scripts and similar should check this variable if they need to identify the local
operating system and the value of ID= is not recognized. Operating systems should be listed in order
of how closely the local operating system relates to the listed ones, starting with the closest. This
field is optional. Example: for an operating system with "ID=centos", an assignment of "ID_LIKE="rhel
fedora"" would be appropriate. For an operating system with "ID=ubuntu", an assignment of
"ID_LIKE=debian" is appropriate.

VERSION_CODENAME=
A lower-case string (no spaces or other characters outside of 0–9, a–z, ".", "_" and "-") identifying
the operating system release code name, excluding any OS name information or release version, and
suitable for processing by scripts or usage in generated filenames. This field is optional and may
not be implemented on all systems. Examples: "VERSION_CODENAME=buster", "VERSION_CODENAME=xenial"

VERSION_ID=
A lower-case string (mostly numeric, no spaces or other characters outside of 0–9, a–z, ".", "_" and
"-") identifying the operating system version, excluding any OS name information or release code
name, and suitable for processing by scripts or usage in generated filenames. This field is optional.
Example: "VERSION_ID=17" or "VERSION_ID=11.04".

PRETTY_NAME=
A pretty operating system name in a format suitable for presentation to the user. May or may not
contain a release code name or OS version of some kind, as suitable. If not set, defaults to
"PRETTY_NAME="Linux"". Example: "PRETTY_NAME="Fedora 17 (Beefy Miracle)"".

ANSI_COLOR=
A suggested presentation color when showing the OS name on the console. This should be specified as
string suitable for inclusion in the ESC [ m ANSI/ECMA-48 escape code for setting graphical
rendition. This field is optional. Example: "ANSI_COLOR="0;31"" for red, or "ANSI_COLOR="1;34"" for
light blue.

CPE_NAME=
A CPE name for the operating system, in URI binding syntax, following the Common Platform Enumeration
Specification[2] as proposed by the NIST. This field is optional. Example:
"CPE_NAME="cpe:/o:fedoraproject:fedora:17""

HOME_URL=, SUPPORT_URL=, BUG_REPORT_URL=, PRIVACY_POLICY_URL=
Links to resources on the Internet related the operating system. HOME_URL= should refer to the
homepage of the operating system, or alternatively some homepage of the specific version of the
operating system. SUPPORT_URL= should refer to the main support page for the operating system, if
there is any. This is primarily intended for operating systems which vendors provide support for.
BUG_REPORT_URL= should refer to the main bug reporting page for the operating system, if there is
any. This is primarily intended for operating systems that rely on community QA. PRIVACY_POLICY_URL=
should refer to the main privacy policy page for the operation system, if there is any. These
settings are optional, and providing only some of these settings is common. These URLs are intended
to be exposed in "About this system" UIs behind links with captions such as "About this Operating
System", "Obtain Support", "Report a Bug", or "Privacy Policy". The values should be in RFC3986
format[3], and should be "http:" or "https:" URLs, and possibly "mailto:" or "tel:". Only one URL
shall be listed in each setting. If multiple resources need to be referenced, it is recommended to
provide an online landing page linking all available resources. Examples:
"HOME_URL="https://fedoraproject.org/"" and "BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugzilla.redhat.com/""

BUILD_ID=
A string uniquely identifying the system image used as the origin for a distribution (it is not
updated with system updates). The field can be identical between different VERSION_IDs as BUILD_ID is
an only a unique identifier to a specific version. Distributions that release each update as a new
version would only need to use VERSION_ID as each build is already distinct based on the VERSION_ID.
This field is optional. Example: "BUILD_ID="2013-03-20.3"" or "BUILD_ID=201303203".

VARIANT=
A string identifying a specific variant or edition of the operating system suitable for presentation
to the user. This field may be used to inform the user that the configuration of this system is
subject to a specific divergent set of rules or default configuration settings. This field is
optional and may not be implemented on all systems. Examples: "VARIANT="Server Edition"",
"VARIANT="Smart Refrigerator Edition"" Note: this field is for display purposes only. The VARIANT_ID
field should be used for making programmatic decisions.

VARIANT_ID=
A lower-case string (no spaces or other characters outside of 0–9, a–z, ".", "_" and "-"),
identifying a specific variant or edition of the operating system. This may be interpreted by other
packages in order to determine a divergent default configuration. This field is optional and may not
be implemented on all systems. Examples: "VARIANT_ID=server", "VARIANT_ID=embedded"

If you are reading this file from C code or a shell script to determine the OS or a specific version of
it, use the ID and VERSION_ID fields, possibly with ID_LIKE as fallback for ID. When looking for an OS
identification string for presentation to the user use the PRETTY_NAME field.

Note that operating system vendors may choose not to provide version information, for example to
accommodate for rolling releases. In this case, VERSION and VERSION_ID may be unset. Applications should
not rely on these fields to be set.

Operating system vendors may extend the file format and introduce new fields. It is highly recommended to
prefix new fields with an OS specific name in order to avoid name clashes. Applications reading this file
must ignore unknown fields. Example: "DEBIAN_BTS="debbugs://bugs.debian.org/""

EXAMPLE

           NAME=Fedora
           VERSION="17 (Beefy Miracle)"
           ID=fedora
           VERSION_ID=17
           PRETTY_NAME="Fedora 17 (Beefy Miracle)"
           ANSI_COLOR="0;34"
           CPE_NAME="cpe:/o:fedoraproject:fedora:17"
           HOME_URL="https://fedoraproject.org/"
           BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugzilla.redhat.com/"

NOTES