MACHINE-INFO(5) machine-info MACHINE-INFO(5)
NAME
machine-info - Local machine information file
SYNOPSIS
/etc/machine-info
DESCRIPTION
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
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
PRETTY_HOSTNAME="Lennart's Tablet"
ICON_NAME=computer-tablet
CHASSIS=tablet
DEPLOYMENT=production
SEE ALSO
systemd(1), os-release(5), hostname(5), machine-id(5), hostnamectl(1),
systemd-hostnamed.service(8)
NOTES
1. XDG Icon Naming Specification
https://standards.freedesktop.org/icon-naming-spec/icon-naming-spec-latest.html
systemd 257.9 MACHINE-INFO(5)
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