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In this tutorial, we’ll show several different commands on how to check what version of CentOS is installed on your system.
The lsb_release command displays Linux Standard Base (LSB) information about your Linux distribution.
lsb_release -a
Your CentOS version will be shown on the Description line.
You can use the rpm tool to display information about the centos-release package, which includes the CentOS version in its name:
rpm --query centos-release
Output: centos-release-7-9.2009.1.el7.centos.x86_64
To find your CentOS version enter the following command:
cat /etc/centos-release
CentOS Linux release 7.9.2009 (Core)
The /etc/os-release file is present on all systems running systemd and contains operating system identification data.
This method will only work if you have CentOS 7:
cat /etc/os-release
NAME="CentOS Linux" VERSION="7 (Core)" ID="centos" ID_LIKE="rhel fedora" VERSION_ID="7" PRETTY_NAME="CentOS Linux 7 (Core)" ANSI_COLOR="0;31" CPE_NAME="cpe:/o:centos:centos:7" HOME_URL="https://www.centos.org/" BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugs.centos.org/" CENTOS_MANTISBT_PROJECT="CentOS-7" CENTOS_MANTISBT_PROJECT_VERSION="7" REDHAT_SUPPORT_PRODUCT="centos" REDHAT_SUPPORT_PRODUCT_VERSION="7"
hostnamectl is a command that allows you to set the system hostname , but you can also use it to find your CentOS branch.
This method will work only if you have CentOS 7:
hostnamectl
Static hostname: liviu.test Icon name: computer-vm Chassis: vm Machine ID: 114054dc5a87478f99adbbed6027eea0 Boot ID: f1abc254dae0418498e32057c515a92e Virtualization: kvm Operating System: CentOS Linux 7 (Core) CPE OS Name: cpe:/o:centos:centos:7 Kernel: Linux 3.10.0-1160.76.1.el7.x86_64 Architecture: x86-64
In this guide, we have shown you how to find the version of CentOS installed on your system.