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What command should I run in order to find out what distro a Linux server is running?

Nick Bolton
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7 Answers7

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On most modern distributions, you can query the Linux Standard Base system with

lsb_release -d

Sample output:

Description:    Debian GNU/Linux 5.0.2 (lenny)
Description:    Ubuntu 9.04
Zanchey
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    LSB toolset seems to always be available in modern distributions, but rarely installed by default... – freiheit Aug 23 '09 at 15:25
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    @freiheit - I think that says all you need to know about LSB really :-) – Zanchey Aug 24 '09 at 04:12
  • the command isn't present on all distros – crk Dec 17 '23 at 20:14
  • @crk The command is likely available on all major distros but, as commented on earlier, may not be installed by default for a given distribution under common package selections. – doneal24 Dec 25 '23 at 20:13
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I answered a similar question on SuperUser.

For most of the popular distributions then,

cat /etc/*{release,version}
Community
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jtimberman
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2

For distribution name...

cat /etc/issue

For platform...

uname -a
Nick Bolton
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The most reliable for figuring out which linux distribution:

ls -ld /etc/*release* /etc/*version*

Then cat whatever files look interesting from that.

But you probably (as mentioned in another comment already) always want to run uname -a first, in case it isn't even a linux distribution.

freiheit
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cat /etc/system-release

for more detailed output

cat /etc/os-release
crk
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  • /etc/system-release is not found on Linux Mint – Davidw Dec 24 '23 at 18:23
  • For OEL 8, these files are provided by the oraclelinux-release package, which is not a required package. Other REL-type systems likely have similarly-named packages that are also not required. – doneal24 Dec 25 '23 at 20:16
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There is a routine in VBoxSysInfo.sh, that is part of VirtualBox that can be a good starting point.

However, I'd rather ask the sysadmin about this. Apart from the distribution, particular servers can have specific settings and it is frustrating to discover those right after breaking them (not to mention pissing off the sysadmin, that'll became hostile to you for being a smartass and breaking his server). I tend to treat all sysadmins as friends/teammates, there is plenty of other people to fight with: users, management etc :-)

Anonymous
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You can also run nmap -A to let it guess the OS and version installed on a remote host

dmityugov
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