How to get the OS on which PHP is running?

Question

For building a unix/dos specific script I need to know on which kind of operating system I am.

How do i get this information?
phpinfo(); tells me a lot more and not very clear whether I'm running on unix or not.

Answer 1

PHP has many predefined constants that are often useful.

Here, PHP_OS is the one you are looking for.

For instance, on my current machine, this code :

var_dump(PHP_OS);

Gives :

string 'Linux' (length=5)

You have some examples and comparisons with what the php_uname function can get you on the manual page of php_uname ; for instance (quoting) :

<?php
echo php_uname();
echo PHP_OS;

/* Some possible outputs:
Linux localhost 2.4.21-0.13mdk #1 Fri Mar 14 15:08:06 EST 2003 i686
Linux

FreeBSD localhost 3.2-RELEASE #15: Mon Dec 17 08:46:02 GMT 2001
FreeBSD

Windows NT XN1 5.1 build 2600
WINNT
*/

if (strtoupper(substr(PHP_OS, 0, 3)) === 'WIN') {
    echo 'This is a server using Windows!';
} else {
    echo 'This is a server not using Windows!';
}

That page also says :

For the name of just the operating system, consider using the PHP_OS constant, but keep in mind this constant will contain the operating system PHP was built on.

Answer 2

Just bear in mind that PHP_OS actually contains the platform on which PHP was built. This may not be the same platform as that on which it is deployed. Therefore php_uname('s') is more reliable.

Answer 3

As of PHP 7.2.0 we have a new Predefined Constant to get the operating system family i.e. PHP_OS_FAMILY. It returns a string Either of 'Windows', 'BSD', 'OSX', 'Solaris', 'Linux' or 'Unknown'.

Answer 4

PHP Does not provide any function to get the name of the distribution, php_uname is similar to Linux command uname, does not provide any info about the distribution itself.

Neither php_uname nor PHP_OS give sufficient info. about the distribution but the OS type (e.g. Linux / Windows).

I think the best way to know what is the running OS/distribution is to read /etc/os-release, the good thing is this file has read permission for all system users and the bad thing is it may not work on shared hosting.

Here I wrote a very simple PHP function which reads and convert os-release to an array:

    function getOSInformation()
    {
        if (false == function_exists("shell_exec") || false == is_readable("/etc/os-release")) {
            return null;
        }

        $os         = shell_exec('cat /etc/os-release');
        $listIds    = preg_match_all('/.*=/', $os, $matchListIds);
        $listIds    = $matchListIds[0];

        $listVal    = preg_match_all('/=.*/', $os, $matchListVal);
        $listVal    = $matchListVal[0];

        array_walk($listIds, function(&$v, $k){
            $v = strtolower(str_replace('=', '', $v));
        });

        array_walk($listVal, function(&$v, $k){
            $v = preg_replace('/=|"/', '', $v);
        });

        return array_combine($listIds, $listVal);
    }

This function prints something like this:

Array
(
    [name] => Ubuntu
    [version] => 16.04.2 LTS (Xenial Xerus)
    [id] => ubuntu
    [id_like] => debian
    [pretty_name] => Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS
    [version_id] => 16.04
    [home_url] => http://www.ubuntu.com/
    [support_url] => http://help.ubuntu.com/
    [bug_report_url] => http://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/
    [version_codename] => xenial
    [ubuntu_codename] => xenial
)

Held og lykke [1] ;-)

[1] Danish phrase means good luck.

Answer 5

On php 7.2.0 you can use the PHP_OS_FAMILY constant:

• http://php.net/manual/en/reserved.constants.php#constant.php-os-family

In other PHP version you can use:

/**
* return DOS OR UNIX
*/
function familyOS() {
   return (stripos(PHP_OS, "WIN") === 0)? "DOS" : "UNIX";
}

Answer 6

PHP_OS is prefined with the host os name: http://us2.php.net/manual/en/reserved.constants.php

Answer 7

There are 2 different way to check the platform that your PHP is running on it.

1. Using PHP_OS which is a const and will point to the 'operating system name' that your PHP was built in it.
2. Using PHP built in function php_uname() that will tell you more about platform (Operating system name, Host name, Version information, Release name, Machine type) that your script is running on it.

Answer 8

#!/usr/bin/env php
<?php
$platform = DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR === '\\'
    ? 'Windows'
    : 'Unix/Linux';

I am aware that this is not very granular, but it may suffice for a simple recognition between Win and *nix systems. YMMV

Answer 9

Here what i am using

switch (strtolower(php_uname('s'))) {
    case "linux": echo "Server is running on linux OS"
        break;
    case "windows nt": echo "Server is running on Windows OS"
        break;
    default:
        echo "Unknown";
        break;
}

We can also use PHP_OS but this is not accurate as documentation says The operating system PHP was built for

so php_uname('s') is good approach.

However PhpStrom 2020.2 IDE suggests [EA] PHP_OS constant should be used instead.

Answer 10

$user_agent     =   $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'];
function getOS() { 

    global $user_agent;

    $os_platform    =   "Unknown OS Platform";

    $os_array       =   array(
                            '/windows nt 6.2/i'     =>  'Windows 8',
                            '/windows nt 6.1/i'     =>  'Windows 7',
                            '/windows nt 6.0/i'     =>  'Windows Vista',
                            '/windows nt 5.2/i'     =>  'Windows Server 2003/XP x64',
                            '/windows nt 5.1/i'     =>  'Windows XP',
                            '/windows xp/i'         =>  'Windows XP',
                            '/windows nt 5.0/i'     =>  'Windows 2000',
                            '/windows me/i'         =>  'Windows ME',
                            '/win98/i'              =>  'Windows 98',
                            '/win95/i'              =>  'Windows 95',
                            '/win16/i'              =>  'Windows 3.11',
                            '/macintosh|mac os x/i' =>  'Mac OS X',
                            '/mac_powerpc/i'        =>  'Mac OS 9',
                            '/linux/i'              =>  'Linux',
                            '/ubuntu/i'             =>  'Ubuntu',
                            '/iphone/i'             =>  'iPhone',
                            '/ipod/i'               =>  'iPod',
                            '/ipad/i'               =>  'iPad',
                            '/android/i'            =>  'Android',
                            '/blackberry/i'         =>  'BlackBerry',
                            '/webos/i'              =>  'Mobile'
                        );

    foreach ($os_array as $regex => $value) { 

        if (preg_match($regex, $user_agent)) {
            $os_platform    =   $value;
        }

    }   

    return $os_platform;

}

$user_os  =   getOS();


$device_details =   "<strong>Operating System: </strong>".$user_os."";

print_r($device_details);