HP-UX Reference (11i v2 07/12) - 2 System Calls (vol 5)

uname(2) uname(2)

ERRORS

If uname() or setuname() fails, errno is set to one of the following values.

[EFAULT] name points to an illegal address. The reliable detection of this error is implementation

dependent.

[EPERM]

setuname() was attempted by a process lacking appropriate privileges.

WARNINGS

uname() returns one of two versions of the

utsname structure.

• HP-UX compatible version (compatible with all OS versions and updates).

• Expanded version of the structure, which provides room to accommodate larger node names.

The compatible structure is used by default. To use the expanded structure, see nodehostnamesize(5).

If the administrator has conﬁgured a node name with a length larger than 8 bytes, the compatible version

of the

utsname structure, as returned by

uname(), contains just the ﬁrst 8 bytes in the

utsname.nodename

ﬁeld. No other ﬁelds in the utsname

structure are truncated in this manner.

Setting a node name of more than 8 bytes with

setuname() is only possible with the appropriate

conﬁguration options enabled. It is strongly recommended that all related documentation be completely

understood before setting a larger node name. A node name larger than 8 bytes can cause anomalous or

incorrect behavior in applications which use the uname command or the uname() system function to

access the names.

It is recommended that, whenever possible, programs use the host name as returned by the gethost-

name()

interface rather than the utsname nodename ﬁeld. This avoids any issues with respect to the

expanded version of the utsname structure; it will be unnecessary to use it.

See gethostname(2) for more information.

AUTHOR

uname() was developed by AT&T and HP.