machine-info(5) — Linux manual page

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | EXAMPLE | SEE ALSO | NOTES | COLOPHON

MACHINE-INFO(5)               machine-info               MACHINE-INFO(5)

NAME         top

       machine-info - Local machine information file

SYNOPSIS         top

       /etc/machine-info

DESCRIPTION         top

       The /etc/machine-info file contains machine metadata.

       The format of machine-info is a newline-separated list of
       environment-like shell-compatible variable assignments, ignoring
       comments and empty lines. It is possible to source the
       configuration from shell scripts, however, beyond mere variable
       assignments no shell features are supported, allowing
       applications to read the file without implementing a shell
       compatible execution engine. See os-release(5) for a detailed
       description of the format.

       /etc/machine-info contains metadata about the machine that is set
       by the user or administrator. The settings configured here have
       the highest precedence. When not set, appropriate values may be
       determined automatically, based on the information about the
       hardware or other configuration files. It is thus completely fine
       for this file to not be present.

       You may use hostnamectl(1) to change the settings of this file
       from the command line.

OPTIONS         top

       The following machine metadata parameters may be set using
       /etc/machine-info:

       PRETTY_HOSTNAME=
           A pretty human-readable UTF-8 machine identifier string. This
           should contain a name like "Lennart's Laptop" which is useful
           to present to the user and does not suffer by the syntax
           limitations of internet domain names. If possible, the
           internet hostname as configured in /etc/hostname should be
           kept similar to this one. Example: if this value is
           "Lennart's Computer" an Internet hostname of
           "lennarts-computer" might be a good choice. If this parameter
           is not set, an application should fall back to the Internet
           hostname for presentation purposes.

       ICON_NAME=
           An icon identifying this machine according to the XDG Icon
           Naming Specification[1]. If this parameter is not set, an
           application should fall back to "computer" or a similar icon
           name.

       CHASSIS=
           The chassis type. Currently, the following chassis types are
           defined: "desktop", "laptop", "convertible", "server",
           "tablet", "handset", "watch", and "embedded", as well as the
           special chassis types "vm" and "container" for virtualized
           systems that lack an immediate physical chassis.

           Note that most systems allow detection of the chassis type
           automatically (based on firmware information or suchlike).
           This setting should only be used to override a misdetection
           or to manually configure the chassis type where automatic
           detection is not available.

           Added in version 197.

       DEPLOYMENT=
           Describes the system deployment environment. One of the
           following is suggested: "development", "integration",
           "staging", "production".

           Added in version 216.

       LOCATION=
           Describes the system location if applicable and known. Takes
           a human-friendly, free-form string. This may be as generic as
           "Berlin, Germany" or as specific as "Left Rack, 2nd Shelf".

           Added in version 216.

       HARDWARE_VENDOR=
           Specifies the hardware vendor. If unspecified, the hardware
           vendor set in DMI or hwdb(7) will be used.

           Added in version 251.

       HARDWARE_MODEL=
           Specifies the hardware model. If unspecified, the hardware
           model set in DMI or hwdb(7) will be used.

           Added in version 251.

EXAMPLE         top

           PRETTY_HOSTNAME="Lennart's Tablet"
           ICON_NAME=computer-tablet
           CHASSIS=tablet
           DEPLOYMENT=production

SEE ALSO         top

       systemd(1), os-release(5), hostname(5), machine-id(5),
       hostnamectl(1), systemd-hostnamed.service(8)

NOTES         top

        1. XDG Icon Naming Specification
           https://standards.freedesktop.org/icon-naming-spec/icon-naming-spec-latest.html

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the systemd (systemd system and service
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       This page was obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
       ⟨https://github.com/systemd/systemd.git⟩ on 2023-12-22.  (At that
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systemd 255                                              MACHINE-INFO(5)

Pages that refer to this page: hostnamectl(1)hostname(5)machine-id(5)org.freedesktop.hostname1(5)os-release(5)systemd.network(5)systemd.unit(5)systemd.directives(7)systemd.index(7)systemd-hostnamed.service(8)