How do I find out the distro of a Linux server?

Question

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

Answer 1

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

Answer 2

I answered a similar question on SuperUser.

For most of the popular distributions then,

cat /etc/*{release,version}

Answer 3

For distribution name...

cat /etc/issue

For platform...

uname -a

Answer 4

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.

Answer 5

cat /etc/system-release

for more detailed output

cat /etc/os-release

Answer 6

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 :-)

Answer 7

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