OS-RELEASE(5)

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.