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 basic file format of machine-info is a newline-separated list of environment-like
shell-compatible variable assignments. 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.
/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.
DEPLOYMENT=
Describes the system deployment environment. One of the following is suggested:
"development", "integration", "staging", "production".
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".
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
http://standards.freedesktop.org/icon-naming-spec/icon-naming-spec-latest.html
systemd 249 MACHINE-INFO(5)
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