Overview
This runbook tells you how to determine your operating system and associated details.
Check RunBook Match
Use this runbook if you want to know details of the operating system you are running.
Initial Steps Overview
Detailed Steps
1) Get a terminal
If you are not sure how to this, here are some methods you can try:
- Use an application finder and search for ‘terminal’
2) Run uname
In your terminal, run uname
.
If you see the output
Linux
, note down that you are on a Linux operating system. Go to Step 3If you see the output
Darwin
, note that you are on a Mac/iOS operating system. Go to Step 4If you see [TODO] then you are on a Windows machine. Go to Step 5
NOTE: If you run this on a container, the output will refer to the host machine’s operating system, not the container’s (technically, the container doesn’t have an operating system, it has a distribution, eg Debian).
3) Get Linux OS Details
3.1) Run uname -a
Running this command will get you information about the running kernel:
uname -a
The example output:
Linux dali 5.4.0-37-generic #41-Ubuntu SMP Wed Jun 3 18:57:02 UTC 2020 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
tells you (in order) the:
OS / Kernel name (
Linux
above)Nodename / short hostname (
dali
above)Kernel release (
5.4.0-37-generic
above)Kernel version (
#41-Ubuntu SMP Wed Jun 3 18:57:02 UTC 2020
above)Machine hardware name (
x86_64
above)Processor type (
x86_64
above)Hardware platform (
x86_64
above)Operating system (
GNU/Linux
above)
NOTE If you run this on a container, the output will refer to the host machine’s operating system, not the container’s (technically, the container doesn’t have an operating system, it has a distribution, eg Debian).
3.2) Get Linux OS Details
If you have the lsb_release
command available on your machine, you can run:
lsb_release -a
to get the following details:
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS
Release: 20.04
Codename: focal
If you don’t have this command, then you can try installing it in your package manager (search for lsb-core
, eg centos-lsb-core
, or lsb-release
). Confusingly, the command has an underscore, but the package name usually has dashes.
3.3) Get Linux OS Distribution
There are some /etc
files that may give you more information:
cat /etc/issue
cat /etc/issue.net
cat /etc/os-release
3.4) Per-Distribution Information
Depending on your distribution, more information may be gleaned.
3.4.1) RedHat / CentOS
cat /etc/centos-release
cat /etc/redhat-release
cat /etc/system-release
cat /etc/system-release-cpe
4) Get Mac OS Details
TODO
5) Get Windows OS Details
TODO
Further Steps
None