Determining Which Distribution Is Running on a Host

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Determining Which Distribution Is Running on a Host

In this hands-on lab, we will determine the Linux distribution that is running on the lab host. As a System Administrator, it's not uncommon to log into an unfamiliar system to perform troubleshooting and other tasks, and this lab gives us a chance to practice discovering details about the operating system.

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Lab Info

Level

Beginner

Last updated

Jul 23, 2025

Duration

30m

Challenge

View the Release Files
1. We can view the release files by using globbing to pick up every file that contains the word "release" in the /etc/ directory.
```
cat /etc/*release*
```
Challenge

View the Issue Files
1. We can view the issue files by using globbing to pick up every file that contains the word "issue" in the /etc/ directory.
```
cat /etc/*issue*
```
Challenge

Run a Utility to Determine the Linux Distribution
1. We can use a couple of utilities to determine the distribution. We can either use lsb_release -a, or for systemd-based systems, we can use hostnamectl.

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