freebsd man page for freebsd-version

FREEBSD-VERSION(1)					    BSD General Commands Manual 					FREEBSD-VERSION(1)

NAME
     freebsd-version -- print the version and patch level of the installed system

SYNOPSIS
     freebsd-version [-ku]

DESCRIPTION
     The freebsd-version utility makes a best effort to determine the version and patch level of the installed kernel and / or userland.

     The following options are available:

     -k 	 Print the version and patch level of the installed kernel.  Unlike uname(1), if a new kernel has been installed but the system
		 has not yet rebooted, freebsd-version will print the version and patch level of the new kernel.

     -u 	 Print the version and patch level of the installed userland.  These are hardcoded into freebsd-version during the build.

     If both -k and -u are specified, freebsd-version will print the kernel version first, then the userland version, on separate lines.  If nei-
     ther is specified, it will print the userland version only.

IMPLEMENTATION NOTES
     The freebsd-version utility should provide the correct answer in the vast majority of cases, including on systems kept up-to-date using
     freebsd-update(8), which does not update the kernel version unless the kernel itself was affected by the latest patch.

     To determine the name (and hence the location) of a custom kernel, the freebsd-version utility will attempt to parse
     /boot/defaults/loader.conf and /boot/loader.conf, looking for definitions of the kernel and bootfile variables, both with a default value of
     ``kernel''.  It may however fail to locate the correct kernel if either or both of these variables are defined in a non-standard location,
     such as in /boot/loader.rc.

ENVIRONMENT
     ROOT  Path to the root of the filesystem in which to look for loader.conf and the kernel.

EXAMPLES
     To determine the version of the currently running userland:

	   /bin/freebsd-version -u

     To inspect a system being repaired using a live CD:

	   mount -rt ufs /dev/ada0p2 /mnt
	   env ROOT=/mnt /mnt/bin/freebsd-version -ku

SEE ALSO
     uname(1), loader.conf(5), freebsd-version(8)

HISTORY
     The freebsd-version command appeared in FreeBSD 10.0.

AUTHORS
     The freebsd-version utility and this manual page were written by Dag-Erling Smorgrav <des@FreeBSD.org>.

BSD
								  October 5, 2013							       BSD