Manual page for uname(1)
uname - print name of current system
SYNOPSIS
uname
[
-aimnprsvX
]
uname
[
-S
system_name ]
DESCRIPTION
The uname
utility
prints information about the current system
on the standard output.
When options are specified, symbols
representing one or more system characteristics will be
written to the standard output.
If no options are specified,
uname
prints the current operating system's name.
The options print selected information returned by
uname.2
sysinfo.2
or both.
OPTIONS
The following options are supported:
- -a
-
Print basic information currently available from the system.
- -i
-
Print the name of the hardware implementation (platform).
- -m
-
Print the machine hardware name (class). Use of this option is discouraged;
use
uname -p
instead.
See
NOTES
section below.
- -n
-
Print the nodename (the nodename is the name by which the system is known
to a communications network).
- -p
-
Print the current host's ISA or processor type.
- -r
-
Print the operating system release level.
- -s
-
Print the name of the operating system.
This is the default.
- -v
-
Print the operating system version.
- -X
-
Print expanded system information, one information element
per line, as expected by SCO UNIX.
The displayed information includes:
-
- system name, node, release,
version, machine, and number of CPUs.
- BusType, Serial, and Users (set to "unknown" in Solaris)
- OEM# and Origin# (set to
0
and
1,
respectively)
- -S system_name
-
The nodename may be changed by specifying a system name argument.
The system name argument is restricted to
SYS_NMLN
characters.
SYS_NMLN
is an implementation specific value defined in
<sys/utsname.h>.
Only the super-user is allowed this capability.
EXAMPLES
The following command:
-
example% uname -sr
prints the operating system name and release level, separated by one
SPACE
character.
ENVIRONMENT
- SYSV3
-
This variable is used to override the default behavior of
uname.
This is necessary to make it possible for some
INTERACTIVE UNIX Systems and SCO UNIX
programs and scripts to work properly.
Many scripts use
uname
to determine the
OS
type or the version
of the
OS
to ensure software is compatible with that OS.
Setting
SYSV3
to an empty string will make
uname
print the following default values:
-
nodename nodename 3.2 2 i386
The individual elements that
uname
displays can also be modified by setting
SYSV3
in the following format:
os,sysname,node,rel,ver,mach
-
- os
-
Operating system (IUS or SCO).
- sysname
-
System name.
- node
-
Nodename as displayed by the
-n
option.
- rel
-
Release level as displayed by the
-r
option.
- ver
-
Version number as displayed by the
-v
option.
- mach
-
Machine name as displayed by
-m
option.
Do not put spaces between the elements. If an element is omitted,
the current system value will be used.
See
environ.5
for descriptions of the following environment variables that affect the
execution of
uname:
LC_CTYPE,
LC_MESSAGES,
and
NLSPATH.
EXIT STATUS
The following exit values are returned:
- 0
-
Successful completion.
- >0
-
An error occurred.
ATTRIBUTES
See
attributes.5
for descriptions of the following attributes:
+---------------+-----------------+
|ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE |
+---------------+-----------------+
|Availability | SUNWcsu |
+---------------+-----------------+
SEE ALSO
sysinfo.2
uname.2
attributes.5
environ.5
NOTES
Independent Software Vendors (ISV) and others who need to determine
detailed characteristics of the platform on which their software is either
being installed or executed should use the
uname
command.
To determine the operating system name and release level, use
uname -sr.
To determine only the operating system release level, use
uname -r.
Note that operating system release levels are not guaranteed to be in
x.y
format (such as 5.3, 5.4, 5.5, and so forth); future releases could be in the
x.y.z
format (such as 5.3.1, 5.3.2, 5.4.1, and so forth).
In SunOS 4.x releases, the
arch
command was often used to obtain information similar to that
obtained by using the
uname
command. The
arch
command output "sun4" was often incorrectly interpreted to signify a
SunOS SPARC system.
If hardware platform information is desired, use
uname -sp.
The
arch -k
and
uname -m
commands return equivalent values; however, the use of either of
these commands by third party programs is discouraged, as is the use of the
arch
command in general.
To determine the machine's Instruction Set Architecture (ISA or
processor type), use
uname
with the
-p
option.
Created by unroff & hp-tools.
© by Hans-Peter Bischof. All Rights Reserved (1997).
Last modified 07/October/97
