Some distributions (such as Fedora) are using the VARIANT field to indicate to select packages which of several default configurations they should be using. For example, VARIANT=Server provides a different default firewall configuration (blocking basically everything but SSH and the management console) whereas VARIANT=Workstation opens many other ports for application compatibility.
By adding this patch to the manual pages, we can standardize on a cross-distribution mechanism for accomplishing this. Fedora implementation details are available at https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Per-Product_Configuration --- man/os-release.xml | 35 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 35 insertions(+) diff --git a/man/os-release.xml b/man/os-release.xml index 8f4ab10fed78b0f5c0c3842eb27bdef650fbdd93..96de5ba644d53cc58e405c3e578d04492e57f600 100644 --- a/man/os-release.xml +++ b/man/os-release.xml @@ -272,10 +272,45 @@ or <literal>BUILD_ID=201303203</literal>. </para></listitem> </varlistentry> + <varlistentry> + <term><varname>VARIANT=</varname></term> + + <listitem><para> + A string identifying a specific variant or edition of the + operating system suitable for presentation to the user. This + field may be used to inform the user that the configuration of + this system is subject to a specific divergent set of rules or + default configuration settings. This field is optional and may + not be implemented on all systems. + Examples: + <literal>VARIANT="Server Edition"</literal>, + <literal>VARIANT="Smart Refrigerator Edition"</literal> + Note: this field is for display purposes only. The + <varname>VARIANT_ID</varname> field should be used for making + programmatic decisions. + </para></listitem> + </varlistentry> + + <varlistentry> + <term><varname>VARIANT_ID=</varname></term> + + <listitem><para> + A lower-case string ((no spaces or other characters outside of + 0-9, a-z, ".", "_" and "-"), identifying a specific variant or + edition of the operating system. This may be interpreted by + other packages in order to determine a divergent default + configuration. This field is optional and may not be + implemented on all systems. + Examples: + <literal>VARIANT_ID=server</literal>, + <literal>VARIANT_ID=embedded</literal> + </para></listitem> + </varlistentry> + </variablelist> <para>If you are reading this file from C code or a shell script to determine the OS or a specific version of it, use the <varname>ID</varname> and <varname>VERSION_ID</varname> fields, -- 2.3.6 _______________________________________________ systemd-devel mailing list [email protected] http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/systemd-devel
