As an expert system administrator, I’ve come across the uname command many times and have seen users running into problems when trying to use it properly. This blog post will explain how to use uname correctly in order to get the most out of this powerful piece of Linux software.
The uname command is used to query the system about information regarding the current operating system. By running uname without any argument, the output will be the -s flag, which will display the kernel name (e.g. Linux). With the following arguments used in uname, different information from the system can be obtained:
-a: This flag will print out all information including the kernel name, kernel release, kernel version, nodename, kernel build date & time, hostname, and processor type.-n: This flag prints out the nodename or hostname of the system.-m: This flag prints out information regarding the processor type.
For example, if you are using a Debian system and you want to get information specifically about the Debian version, then you can use the -r flag and it should print out the kernel release. This is the same as the version of the operating system. For another example, if you are having trouble finding the node or hostname of your system, the -n flag can be used to retrieve it.
I often get asked for help on how to use uname properly, and I hope this post has made it easy to understand and properly use it. In order to get the most out of uname, it’s important to understand what flags do what and how to use them effectively.By doing so, you can quickly and easily get the system information you need.
