uname (short for ''unix name'') is a

computer program A computer program is a sequence or set of instructions in a programming language for a computer to execute. Computer programs are one component of software, which also includes documentation and other intangible components. A computer program ...

Unix Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and ot ...

and

Unix-like A Unix-like (sometimes referred to as UN*X or *nix) operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, although not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. A Unix-li ...

computer

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...

s that prints the name, version and other details about the current machine and the operating system running on it.

History

The uname system call and command appeared for the first time in

PWB/UNIX The Programmer's Workbench (PWB/UNIX) is an early, now discontinued, version of the Unix operating system that had been created in the Bell Labs Computer Science Research Group of AT&T. Its stated goal was to provide a time-sharing working envir ...

. Both are specified by

POSIX The Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX) is a family of standards specified by the IEEE Computer Society for maintaining compatibility between operating systems. POSIX defines both the system- and user-level application programming interf ...

. The

GNU GNU () is an extensive collection of free software (383 packages as of January 2022), which can be used as an operating system or can be used in parts with other operating systems. The use of the completed GNU tools led to the family of operat ...

version of uname is included in the "sh-utils" or "coreutils" packages. uname itself is not available as a standalone program. The version of uname bundled in GNU coreutils was written by David MacKenzie. The command is available as a separate package for

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

as part of the

GnuWin32 The G''nu''W''in''32 project provides native ports in the form of executable computer programs, patches, and source code for various GNU and open source tools and software, much of it modified to run on the 32-bit Windows platform. The ports inc ...

project and the

UnxUtils UnxUtils is a collection of ports of common GNU Unix-like utilities to native Win32, with executables only depending on the Microsoft C- runtime msvcrt.dll. The collection was last updated externally on April 15, 2003, by Karl M. Syring. The mo ...

collection of

native Native may refer to: People * Jus soli, citizenship by right of birth * Indigenous peoples, peoples with a set of specific rights based on their historical ties to a particular territory ** Native Americans (disambiguation) In arts and entert ...

Win32 The Windows API, informally WinAPI, is Microsoft's core set of application programming interfaces (APIs) available in the Microsoft Windows operating systems. The name Windows API collectively refers to several different platform implementations th ...

ports A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Ham ...

of common GNU Unix-like utilities.

Related and similar commands

* Some Unix variants, such as

AT&T AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile tel ...

UNIX System V Unix System V (pronounced: "System Five") is one of the first commercial versions of the Unix operating system. It was originally developed by AT&T and first released in 1983. Four major versions of System V were released, numbered 1, 2, 3, an ...

Release 3.0, include the related setname program, used to change the values that uname reports. * The

ver Ver or VER may refer to:


*  Voluntary Export Restraints, in international trade
* VER, the IATA airport code for  General Heriberto Jara International Airport
* Volk's Electric Railway, Brighton, England
*  VerPublishing, of the German group VDM P ...

command found in operating systems such as

DOS DOS is shorthand for the MS-DOS and IBM PC DOS family of operating systems. DOS may also refer to: Computing * Data over signalling (DoS), multiplexing data onto a signalling channel * Denial-of-service attack (DoS), an attack on a communicat ...

OS/2 OS/2 (Operating System/2) is a series of computer operating systems, initially created by Microsoft and IBM under the leadership of IBM software designer Ed Iacobucci. As a result of a feud between the two companies over how to position OS/2 ...

and

is similar to the uname command. * The

bash Bash or BASH may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Bash!'' (Rockapella album), 1992 * ''Bash!'' (Dave Bailey album), 1961 * '' Bash: Latter-Day Plays'', a dramatic triptych * ''BASH!'' (role-playing game), a 2005 superhero game * "Bash" ('' ...

shell provides the special variables OSTYPE and HOSTTYPE whose values are similar to those of uname -o and uname -m respectively.

Examples

On a system running Darwin, the output from running uname with the -a

command line argument A command-line interpreter or command-line processor uses a command-line interface (CLI) to receive commands from a user in the form of lines of text. This provides a means of setting parameters for the environment, invoking executables and pro ...

might look like the text below: $ uname -a Darwin Roadrunner.local 10.3.0 Darwin Kernel Version 10.3.0: Fri Feb 26 11:58:09 PST 2010; root:xnu-1504.3.12~1/RELEASE_I386 i386 The following table contains examples from various versions of uname on various platforms.These are merely meant to broadly represent common systems; actual output may vary depending on hardware type, OS version, and which software patches have been installed.

Footnotes

External links

* * * * * {{Core Utilities commands Unix SUS2008 utilities IBM i Qshell commands

History

Related and similar commands

Examples

See also

Footnotes

External links