Reference

os-release(5)

file describing the current OS and some of its attributes

NAME

os-release – file describing the current OS and some of its attributes

DESCRIPTION

The os-release file is a new-line separated list of key value pairs. The syntax of this file is a reduced sh(1) variable assignment with the following restrictions:

  • Strings cannot be concatenated together

  • No variable expansion is done

  • All shell special characters must be quoted as documented in sh(1)

  • Variable assignments must be included inside of double quotes if they contain characters outside of A-Z, a-z and 0-9

  • All strings should be UTF-8 format

  • Non-printable characters should not be used in the strings

Lines starting with the character ‘#’ are ignored as comments.

VARIABLES

The following variables are defined by the standard.

NAME

A string describing the preferred OS name.

VERSION

Version string for the OS, in its usual and customary format.

ID

Lower case version of the name with only a-z, 0-9, ‘.’, ‘-’, and ‘_’.

VERSION_ID

Lower case version of the version with only a-z, 0-9, ‘.’, ‘-’, and ‘_’.

PRETTY_NAME

A pretty version of the name presented to the user. May contain release information.

ANSI_COLOR

Suggested color presentation for the OS. This string should be suitable for inclusion within an ESC [ m ANSI/ECMA-48 escape sequence to render the OS in its preferred color. This variable is optional.

CPE_NAME

A CPE name for the operating system. This field shall follow the NIST Common Platform Enumeration specification.

HOME_URL
SUPPORT_URL
BUG_REPORT_URL
PRIVACY_POLICY_URL

Links on the internet, in RFC 3986 format for different aspects of this OS. These variables are optional.

BUILD_ID

A string identifying the build. This variable is optional.

VARIANT

A string describing the variant of this operating system. This variable is optional.

VARIANT_ID

Lower case version of the variant with only a-z, 0-9, ‘.’, ‘-’, and ‘_’. This variable is optional.

All other variables have no standard-defined meaning.

FILES

/etc/os-release

Symbolic link to actual os-release file.

/var/run/os-release

Generated os-release file describing the currently running system.

SEE ALSO

CPE Specification

https://csrc.nist.gov/projects/security-content-automation-protocol/scap-specifications/cpe

RFC 3986

https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3986

os-release Specification

https://www.linux.org/docs/man5/os-release.html

HISTORY

This file first appeared in FreeBSD 13.0.

History