Releases – Versions – Numbers – Kernels
How to get CentOS version number
There are several commands that should be executed in your server’s terminal. You should access server via ssh and execute the following:
cat /etc/centos-release
An alternative commands to check CentOS version:
cat /etc/redhat-release
and
cat /etc/system-release
and
cat /etc/os-release
The output should give you something similar to:
CentOS Linux release 7.4.1708 (Core)
or
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NAME="CentOS Linux" VERSION="7 (Core)" ID="centos" ID_LIKE="rhel fedora" VERSION_ID="7" PRETTY_NAME="CentOS Linux 7 (Core)" ANSI_COLOR="0;31" CPE_NAME="cpe:/o:centos:centos:7" HOME_URL="https://www.centos.org/" BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugs.centos.org/" CENTOS_MANTISBT_PROJECT="CentOS-7" CENTOS_MANTISBT_PROJECT_VERSION="7" REDHAT_SUPPORT_PRODUCT="centos" REDHAT_SUPPORT_PRODUCT_VERSION="7" |
Let me explain how to read CentOS version number and what this number means. You can see that you’re using CentOS release 7 (this is major version) and 4 (this is minor version), third part 1708 is added for 7th version only and indicates that the source code of this release is based on dates from August 2017.
Please keep in mind that you should always consider using the latest stable version of CentOS to have new features and cover security leaks.
How to get CentOS kernel version
If you want to check which kernel is used on your server, this command will help you:
uname -r
The output of the command should be similar to:
3.10.0-693.17.1.el7.x86_64
The output displays following keys:
– 3 – Kernel Version
– 10 – Major Revision
– 0 – Minor Revision
– 17.1.el7 – Fix/Revision Detail
uname command can also give the following information:
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-a, --all print all information, in the following order, except omit -p and -i if unknown: -s, --kernel-name print the kernel name -n, --nodename print the network node hostname -r, --kernel-release print the kernel release -v, --kernel-version print the kernel version -m, --machine print the machine hardware name -p, --processor print the processor type or "unknown" -i, --hardware-platform print the hardware platform or "unknown" -o, --operating-system print the operating system --help display this help and exit --version output version information and exit |
Conclusion
Now you can easily find CentOS version and its kernel version. Also you are able to read the output and understand it. I would like to pay attention that you might have another version of CentOS and version in my example can be not the latest and maybe even outdated. Please do not hesitate to contact us to check that you are running latest version of CentOS server.
Looking forward to comments and questions!