How to find the Linux image version from command line

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The version of the Linux image you are using can be found by running the cat /etc/procomputers-release command.

The /etc/procomputers-release file is updated every time a new image version is released.

The version string looks something like this:

CentOS-8.1-x86_64-Minimal-8GiB-HVM-20200407_163908.

In the above example, the image version is made of:

  • The operating system name: CentOS
  • The operating system version: 8.1
  • The operating system architecture: x86_64. Other possible value is arm64
  • The type of the image: Minimal. Other possible values are Latest, LVM, etc.
  • The default disk size: 8GiB. In AWS EC2, the default disk size is 8 GiB for non RHEL images, and 10 GiB for RHEL images. In Azure, the default disk size is 30 GiB for all images.
  • The image format: HVM for AWS images, and VHD for Azure images
  • The timestamp: 20200407_163908. This means the image has been built on 7th of April, 2020, at 16:39:08. The timestamp format is YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS.

For some images, additional parameters may be added at the end of the version string.

For example, a Generation 2 virtual machine in Azure has version RHEL-8.6-x86_64-Minimal-30GiB-VHD-20221030_150717-Gen2.

In some situations, when the same timestamp needs to be used for a new image, then an image version is added at the end of the version string, like this: RHEL-8.5-x86_64-Minimal-30GiB-VHD-20211013_075146-v3.