Ubuntu Manpage: os-release - Operating system identification

Provided by: systemd_229-4ubuntu21.31_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_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