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:

RHEL-8.5-x86_64-Minimal-30GiB-VHD-20220306_133733.

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

  • The operating system name: RHEL
  • The operating system version: 8.5
  • 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: 30GiB. 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: 20220306_133733. This means the image has been built on 6th of March, 2022, at 13:37:33. 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.

Images built from the same vendor ISO images uses all the same timestamp (the timestamp the vendor ISO images was built). Therefore, in order to differentiate different images, 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.

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