C program for getting Linux system information

In most of the Linux systems we use the command “uname” to print the system information in the terminal.

Ex:

           $uname -a

which gives the information about the system such as OS name, kernel version, release,domain name etc... Similerly we can get that information through C Programming.

Now I will let you how to print Linux system information through C programming in Linux, by using the structure “struct utsname”, and the system call uname() which return 0 on success, -1 on error.. See the code snnippet given below...

uname.c:

#include<stdio.h>

#include<sys/utsname.h>

int main()

{

int ret;

struct utsname buf;

ret = uname(&buf);

if(!ret) {

printf("OperatingSystem name: %s\n",buf.sysname);

printf("Node(Host) name: %s\n",buf.nodename);

printf("Kernel Release Version: %s\n",buf.release);

printf("OS Version: %s\n",buf.version);

printf("Hardware: %s\n",buf.machine);

}

else {

printf("Error in the System call");

return -1;

}

return 0;

}

OUTPUT:

OperatingSystem name: Linux

Node(Host) name: SAI-LAP

Kernel Release Version: 3.2.0-32-generic-pae

OS Version: #51-Ubuntu SMP Wed Sep 26 21:54:23 UTC 2012

Hardware: i686

Note: We can also access these details through /proc/sys/kernel directory, for example

         $cat /proc/sys/kernel/ostype

which gives Operating system type...similerly we can get osrelease,hostname,version,domainname (replace “ostype” with any of these).