Uname Command in Linux

Uname command is used to display basic information about the operating system and hardware. In addition, you can use options with uname to print kernel details and system architecture.

uname Command#

uname is the short name for “UNIX name”. This command works on all Linux and Unix like operating systems. Mostly, it is used to know hostname, processor architecture, and the version of the kernel running on the system.

Following is the basic syntax of the uname command:

uname [OPTIONS]...

The options are as below:

• -a, (--all) – It will show all the available information about system. -snrvmo will produce the same output.
• -s, (--kernel-name) – Prints the kernel name.
• -n, (--nodename) – Display hostname
• -r, (--kernel-release) – Prints the kernel release.
• -v, (--kernel-version) – Display the kernel version.
• -i, (--hardware-platform) – To show the hardware platform.
• -m, (--machine) – Shows the name of the machine’s hardware name.
• -p, (--processor) – Prints the architecture of the processor.
• -o, (--operating-system) – Print the name of the operating system. On Linux systems that is “GNU/Linux”

When you run uname command without any options it just prints the core operating system name.

uname

The output will be the name of the kernel is “Linux”:

Linux

Generally, the uname command is used with the -a option to print all the information:

uname -a

Linux tecnstuff 4.15.0-101-generic #102-Ubuntu SMP Mon May 11 10:07:26 UTC 2020 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Here,

• Linux – It’s Kernel name
• tecnstuff – This is Hostname
• 4.15.0-101-generic is Kernel release
• 102-Ubuntu SMP Mon May 11 10:07:26 UTC 2020 – Kernel version
• x86_64 – Machine hardware name
• GNU/Linux – Operating system name

You can use the options with each other for a specific output. For instance, to determine the hostname and kernel name of your system, you would type:

uname -rn

tecnstuff 4.15.0-101-generic

The output will be in the same sequence as output show with -a option. So it doesn’t matter if you issue -rn or -nr it will show output same in sequence.

Conclusion#

In this tutorial we learned how to use uname command to get kernel, system, hardware and processor information, etc. Generally, it is used with -a option to display all available information.

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