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.
Blank lines are permitted and ignored.
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/""