Get operating system info

Question

I recently started wondering about sites like http   thismachine info  that get the user s operating system info  I have not been able to find out how to do that with PHP  and wanted to try to figure it out   I noticed that they list the user-agent  which gives lots of info about the browser  Do they get the operating system information from that  or from something else  Is there an API I could use to get the user s operating system   I see how they got the Browser and IP  but could not figure out the Operating System part

User · Answer

If you want to get all those information, you might want to read this:
http://php.net/manual/en/function.get-browser.php

You can run the sample code and you'll see how it works:

<?php
echo $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] . "\n\n";

$browser = get_browser(null, true);
print_r($browser);
?>

The above example will output something similar to:

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040803 Firefox/0.9.3

Array
(
    [browser_name_regex] => ^mozilla/5\.0 (windows; .; windows nt 5\.1; .*rv:.*) gecko/.* firefox/0\.9.*$
    [browser_name_pattern] => Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; ?; Windows NT 5.1; *rv:*) Gecko/* Firefox/0.9*
    [parent] => Firefox 0.9
    [platform] => WinXP
    [browser] => Firefox
    [version] => 0.9
    [majorver] => 0
    [minorver] => 9
    [cssversion] => 2
    [frames] => 1
    [iframes] => 1
    [tables] => 1
    [cookies] => 1
    [backgroundsounds] =>
    [vbscript] =>
    [javascript] => 1
    [javaapplets] => 1
    [activexcontrols] =>
    [cdf] =>
    [aol] =>
    [beta] => 1
    [win16] =>
    [crawler] =>
    [stripper] =>
    [wap] =>
    [netclr] =>
)

User · Answer

If you want very few info like a class in your html for common browsers for instance  you could use   function get browser          browser            ua   strtolower   SERVER  HTTP USER AGENT         if  preg match      msie   trident      rv      d       ua   matches    browser    ie ie   matches 1       elseif  preg match    safari chrome firefox      ua   matches    browser    matches 1        return  browser      which will return  safari  or  firefox  or  chrome   or  ie ie8    ie ie9    ie ie10    ie ie11

User · Answer

Took the following code from php manual for get browser      browser   get browser null  true   print r  browser     The  browser array has platform information included which gives  you the specific Operating System in use     Please make sure to see the  Notes  section in that page   This might be something  thismachine info  is using if not something already pointed in other answers

User · Answer

When you go to a website  your browser sends a request to the web server including a lot of information  This information might look something like this   GET  questions 18070154 get-operating-system-info-with-php HTTP 1 1   Host  stackoverflow com   User-Agent  Mozilla 5 0  Macintosh  Intel Mac OS X 10 8 4  AppleWebKit 537 36               KHTML  like Gecko  Chrome 28 0 1500 95 Safari 537 36  Accept  text html application xhtml xml application xml q 0 9     q 0 8   Accept-Language  en-us en q 0 5   Accept-Encoding  gzip deflate sdch   Accept-Charset  ISO-8859-1 utf-8 q 0 7   q 0 7   Keep-Alive  300   Connection  keep-alive   Cookie   lt cookie data removed gt   Pragma  no-cache   Cache-Control  no-cache   These information are all used by the web server to determine how to handle the request  the preferred language and whether compression is allowed   In PHP  all this information is stored in the   SERVER array  To see what you re sending to a web server  create a new PHP file and print out everything from the array     lt pre gt  lt  php print r   SERVER     gt  lt  pre gt    This will give you a nice representation of everything that s being sent to the server  from where you can extract the desired information  e g    SERVER  HTTP USER AGENT   to get the operating system and browser

User · Answer

The code below could explain in its own right  how http   thismachine info  is able to show which operating system someone is using  What it does is that  it sniffs your core operating system model  for example windows nt 5 1 as my own  It then passes windows nt 5 1 i  to Windows XP as the operating system  Using    windows nt 5 1 i    gt   Windows XP   from an array  You could say guesswork  or an approximation yet nonetheless pretty much bang on  Borrowed from an answer on SO https   stackoverflow com a 15497878   lt  php   user agent     SERVER  HTTP USER AGENT     function getOS           global  user agent        os platform     quot Unknown OS Platform quot         os array       array                              windows nt 10 i         gt    Windows 10                               windows nt 6 3 i        gt    Windows 8 1                               windows nt 6 2 i        gt    Windows 8                               windows nt 6 1 i        gt    Windows 7                               windows nt 6 0 i        gt    Windows Vista                               windows nt 5 2 i        gt    Windows Server 2003 XP x64                               windows nt 5 1 i        gt    Windows XP                               windows xp i            gt    Windows XP                               windows nt 5 0 i        gt    Windows 2000                               windows me i            gt    Windows ME                               win98 i                 gt    Windows 98                               win95 i                 gt    Windows 95                               win16 i                 gt    Windows 3 11                               macintosh mac os x i    gt    Mac OS X                               mac powerpc i           gt    Mac OS 9                               linux i                 gt    Linux                               ubuntu i                gt    Ubuntu                               iphone i                gt    iPhone                               ipod i                  gt    iPod                               ipad i                  gt    iPad                               android i               gt    Android                               blackberry i            gt    BlackBerry                               webos i                 gt    Mobile                              foreach   os array as  regex   gt   value          if  preg match  regex   user agent                os platform    value       return  os platform     function getBrowser          global  user agent        browser           quot Unknown Browser quot         browser array   array                                msie i         gt   Internet Explorer                                 firefox i      gt   Firefox                                 safari i       gt   Safari                                 chrome i       gt   Chrome                                 edge i         gt   Edge                                 opera i        gt   Opera                                 netscape i     gt   Netscape                                 maxthon i      gt   Maxthon                                 konqueror i    gt   Konqueror                                 mobile i       gt   Handheld Browser                               foreach   browser array as  regex   gt   value          if  preg match  regex   user agent                browser    value       return  browser       user os          getOS     user browser     getBrowser      device details    quot  lt strong gt Browser   lt  strong gt  quot   user browser  quot  lt br   gt  lt strong gt Operating System   lt  strong gt  quot   user os  quot  quot    print r  device details    echo  quot  lt br   gt  lt br   gt  lt br   gt  quot    SERVER  HTTP USER AGENT    quot  quot       gt    Footnotes   Jan  19 14  There was a suggested edit on Jan  18  2014 to add  msie trident i by YJSoft a new member on SO  The comment read as  Comment  because msie11 s ua doesn t include msie  it includes trident instead  I researched this for a bit  and found a few links explaining the Trident string   http   www sitepoint com ie11-smells-like-firefox  http   www upsdell ca BrowserNews res sniff htm How can I target only Internet Explorer 11 with JavaScript  http   en wikipedia org wiki Trident  28layout engine 29 https   stackoverflow com a 17907562 1415724 http   msdn microsoft com en-us library ie bg182625 v vs 110  aspx An article on MSDN Blogs An article on NCZOnline  Although the edit was rejected  not by myself  but by some of the other editors   it s worth reading up on the links above  and to use your proper judgement   As per a question asked about detecting SUSE  have found this piece of code at the following URL   http   codes-sources commentcamarche net source 49533-operating-system-detection  Additional code     return Operating System    function operating system detection        if   isset    SERVER                agent     SERVER  HTTP USER AGENT              else           global  HTTP SERVER VARS          if   isset   HTTP SERVER VARS                    agent    HTTP SERVER VARS  HTTP USER AGENT                      else               global  HTTP USER AGENT               agent    HTTP USER AGENT                       ros     array  Windows XP    Windows XP         ros     array  Windows NT 5 1 Windows NT5 1     Windows XP         ros     array  Windows 2000    Windows 2000         ros     array  Windows NT 5 0    Windows 2000         ros     array  Windows NT 4 0 WinNT4 0    Windows NT         ros     array  Windows NT 5 2    Windows Server 2003         ros     array  Windows NT 6 0    Windows Vista         ros     array  Windows NT 7 0    Windows 7         ros     array  Windows CE    Windows CE         ros     array   media center pc    0-9  1 2    0-9  1 2      Windows Media Center         ros     array   win   0-9  1 2    0-9x  1 2      Windows         ros     array   win   0-9  2      Windows         ros     array   windows   0-9x  2      Windows           Doesn t seem like these are necessary   not totally sure though          ros     array   winnt   0-9  1 2    0-9  1 2   0 1     Windows NT           ros     array   windows nt    0-9  1 2    0-9  1 2   0 1      Windows NT       fix by bg      ros     array  Windows ME    Windows ME         ros     array  Win 9x 4 90    Windows ME         ros     array  Windows 98 Win98    Windows 98         ros     array  Windows 95    Windows 95         ros     array   windows   0-9  1 2    0-9  1 2      Windows         ros     array  win32    Windows         ros     array   java   0-9  1 2    0-9  1 2    0-9  1 2      Java         ros     array   Solaris   0-9  1 2    0-9x  1 2   0 1     Solaris         ros     array  dos x86    DOS         ros     array  unix    Unix         ros     array  Mac OS X    Mac OS X         ros     array  Mac PowerPC    Macintosh PowerPC         ros     array   mac Macintosh     Mac OS         ros     array   sunos   0-9  1 2    0-9  1 2   0 1     SunOS         ros     array   beos   0-9  1 2    0-9  1 2   0 1     BeOS         ros     array   risc os   0-9  1 2    0-9  1 2      RISC OS         ros     array  os 2    OS 2         ros     array  freebsd    FreeBSD         ros     array  openbsd    OpenBSD         ros     array  netbsd    NetBSD         ros     array  irix    IRIX         ros     array  plan9    Plan9         ros     array  osf    OSF         ros     array  aix    AIX         ros     array  GNU Hurd    GNU Hurd         ros     array   fedora     Linux - Fedora         ros     array   kubuntu     Linux - Kubuntu         ros     array   ubuntu     Linux - Ubuntu         ros     array   debian     Linux - Debian         ros     array   CentOS     Linux - CentOS         ros     array   Mandriva    0-9  1 3     0-9  1 3       0-9  1 3        Linux - Mandriva         ros     array   SUSE    0-9  1 3     0-9  1 3       0-9  1 3        Linux - SUSE         ros     array   Dropline     Linux - Slackware  Dropline GNOME          ros     array   ASPLinux     Linux - ASPLinux         ros     array   Red Hat     Linux - Red Hat           Loads of Linux machines will be detected as unix         Actually  all of the linux machines I ve checked have the  X11  in the User Agent         ros     array  X11    Unix         ros     array   linux     Linux         ros     array   amigaos   0-9  1 2    0-9  1 2      AmigaOS         ros     array  amiga-aweb    AmigaOS         ros     array  amiga    Amiga         ros     array  AvantGo    PalmOS           ros     array   Linux   0-9  1 2    0-9  1 2    0-9  1 3  rel   0-9  1 2   0 1 -  0-9  1 2   i  0-9  1  86  1     Linux           ros     array   Linux   0-9  1 2    0-9  1 2    0-9  1 3  rel   0-9  1 2   0 1  i  0-9  1 86   1     Linux           ros     array   Linux   0-9  1 2    0-9  1 2    0-9  1 3  rel   0-9  1 2   0 1      Linux         ros     array   0-9  1 2    0-9  1 2    0-9  1 3     Linux         ros     array   webtv    0-9  1 2    0-9  1 2      WebTV         ros     array  Dreamcast    Dreamcast OS         ros     array  GetRight    Windows         ros     array  go zilla    Windows         ros     array  gozilla    Windows         ros     array  gulliver    Windows         ros     array  ia archiver    Windows         ros     array  NetPositive    Windows         ros     array  mass downloader    Windows         ros     array  microsoft    Windows         ros     array  offline explorer    Windows         ros     array  teleport    Windows         ros     array  web downloader    Windows         ros     array  webcapture    Windows         ros     array  webcollage    Windows         ros     array  webcopier    Windows         ros     array  webstripper    Windows         ros     array  webzip    Windows         ros     array  wget    Windows         ros     array  Java    Unknown         ros     array  flashget    Windows           delete next line if the script show not the right OS        ros     array   PHP    0-9  1 2   0-9  1 2      PHP         ros     array  MS FrontPage    Windows         ros     array   msproxy    0-9  1 2   0-9  1 2      Windows         ros     array   msie   0-9  1 2   0-9  1 2      Windows         ros     array  libwww-perl    Unix         ros     array  UP Browser    Windows CE         ros     array  NetAnts    Windows         file   count    ros         os           for    n 0    n lt  file    n              if   preg match      ros  n  0    i     agent   name                 os     ros  n  1        name 2               break                      return trim    os        Edit  April 12  2015 I noticed a question yesterday that could be relevant to this Q amp A and may be helpful for some  In regards to  Mozilla 5 0  Linux  Android 4 4 2  SAMSUNG-GT-I9505 Build KOT49H  AppleWebKit 537 36  KHTML  like Gecko  Chrome 41 0 2272 96 Mobile Safari 537 36  Question  Store specific data in variable from another variable with regex with PHP Answer  https   stackoverflow com a 29584014    Another edit  and adding a reference link that was asked  and answered accepted today  Nov  4 16  which may be of use  Consult the Q amp A here on Stack   PHP Regex for OS detection

User · Answer

Based on the answer by Fred-II I wanted to share my take on the getOS function  it avoids globals  merges both lists and detects the architecture  x32 x64          param  user agent null     return string     function getOS  user agent   null        if  isset  user agent   amp  amp  isset   SERVER  HTTP USER AGENT                user agent     SERVER  HTTP USER AGENT                  https   stackoverflow com questions 18070154 get-operating-system-info-with-php      os array              windows nt 10                                 gt    Windows 10            windows nt 6 3                                gt    Windows 8 1            windows nt 6 2                                gt    Windows 8            windows nt 6 1 windows nt 7 0                 gt    Windows 7            windows nt 6 0                                gt    Windows Vista            windows nt 5 2                                gt    Windows Server 2003 XP x64            windows nt 5 1                                gt    Windows XP            windows xp                                    gt    Windows XP            windows nt 5 0 windows nt5 1 windows 2000     gt    Windows 2000            windows me                                    gt    Windows ME            windows nt 4 0 winnt4 0                       gt    Windows NT            windows ce                                    gt    Windows CE            windows 98 win98                              gt    Windows 98            windows 95 win95                              gt    Windows 95            win16                                         gt    Windows 3 11            mac os x 10 1  0-9                            gt    Mac OS X Puma            macintosh mac os x                            gt    Mac OS X            mac powerpc                                   gt    Mac OS 9            linux                                         gt    Linux            ubuntu                                        gt    Linux - Ubuntu            iphone                                        gt    iPhone            ipod                                          gt    iPod            ipad                                          gt    iPad            android                                       gt    Android            blackberry                                    gt    BlackBerry            webos                                         gt    Mobile              media center pc    0-9  1 2    0-9  1 2     gt  Windows Media Center             win   0-9  1 2    0-9x  1 2     gt  Windows             win   0-9  2     gt  Windows             windows   0-9x  2     gt  Windows               Doesn t seem like these are necessary   not totally sure though               winnt   0-9  1 2    0-9  1 2   0 1    gt  Windows NT               windows nt    0-9  1 2    0-9  1 2   0 1     gt  Windows NT      fix by bg           Win 9x 4 90   gt  Windows ME             windows   0-9  1 2    0-9  1 2     gt  Windows            win32   gt  Windows             java   0-9  1 2    0-9  1 2    0-9  1 2     gt  Java             Solaris   0-9  1 2    0-9x  1 2   0 1    gt  Solaris            dos x86   gt  DOS            Mac OS X   gt  Mac OS X            Mac PowerPC   gt  Macintosh PowerPC             mac Macintosh    gt  Mac OS             sunos   0-9  1 2    0-9  1 2   0 1    gt  SunOS             beos   0-9  1 2    0-9  1 2   0 1    gt  BeOS             risc os   0-9  1 2    0-9  1 2     gt  RISC OS            unix   gt  Unix            os 2   gt  OS 2            freebsd   gt  FreeBSD            openbsd   gt  OpenBSD            netbsd   gt  NetBSD            irix   gt  IRIX            plan9   gt  Plan9            osf   gt  OSF            aix   gt  AIX            GNU Hurd   gt  GNU Hurd             fedora    gt  Linux - Fedora             kubuntu    gt  Linux - Kubuntu             ubuntu    gt  Linux - Ubuntu             debian    gt  Linux - Debian             CentOS    gt  Linux - CentOS             Mandriva    0-9  1 3     0-9  1 3       0-9  1 3       gt  Linux - Mandriva             SUSE    0-9  1 3     0-9  1 3       0-9  1 3       gt  Linux - SUSE             Dropline    gt  Linux - Slackware  Dropline GNOME              ASPLinux    gt  Linux - ASPLinux             Red Hat    gt  Linux - Red Hat              Loads of Linux machines will be detected as unix             Actually  all of the linux machines I ve checked have the  X11  in the User Agent             X11   gt  Unix             linux    gt  Linux             amigaos   0-9  1 2    0-9  1 2     gt  AmigaOS            amiga-aweb   gt  AmigaOS            amiga   gt  Amiga            AvantGo   gt  PalmOS               Linux   0-9  1 2    0-9  1 2    0-9  1 3  rel   0-9  1 2   0 1 -  0-9  1 2   i  0-9  1  86  1    gt  Linux               Linux   0-9  1 2    0-9  1 2    0-9  1 3  rel   0-9  1 2   0 1  i  0-9  1 86   1    gt  Linux               Linux   0-9  1 2    0-9  1 2    0-9  1 3  rel   0-9  1 2   0 1     gt  Linux             0-9  1 2    0-9  1 2    0-9  1 3    gt  Linux             webtv    0-9  1 2    0-9  1 2     gt  WebTV            Dreamcast   gt  Dreamcast OS            GetRight   gt  Windows            go zilla   gt  Windows            gozilla   gt  Windows            gulliver   gt  Windows            ia archiver   gt  Windows            NetPositive   gt  Windows            mass downloader   gt  Windows            microsoft   gt  Windows            offline explorer   gt  Windows            teleport   gt  Windows            web downloader   gt  Windows            webcapture   gt  Windows            webcollage   gt  Windows            webcopier   gt  Windows            webstripper   gt  Windows            webzip   gt  Windows            wget   gt  Windows            Java   gt  Unknown            flashget   gt  Windows               delete next line if the script show not the right OS             PHP    0-9  1 2   0-9  1 2     gt  PHP            MS FrontPage   gt  Windows             msproxy    0-9  1 2   0-9  1 2     gt  Windows             msie   0-9  1 2   0-9  1 2     gt  Windows            libwww-perl   gt  Unix            UP Browser   gt  Windows CE            NetAnts   gt  Windows                  https   github com ahmad-sa3d php-useragent blob master core user agent php      arch regex      b x86 64 x86-64 Win64 WOW64 x64 ia64 amd64 ppc64 sparc64 IRIX64  b ix        arch   preg match  arch regex   user agent     64     32        foreach   os array as  regex   gt   value            if  preg match    b    regex    b i    user agent                 return  value   x   arch                       return  Unknown

User · Answer

You can look for this information in   SERVER  HTTP USER AGENT    but its format is free-form  not guaranteed to be sent  and could easily be altered by the user  whether for privacy or other reasons   If you ve not set the browsecap directive  this will return a warning  To make sure it s set  you can retrieve the value using ini get and see if it s set   if ini get  browscap           browser   get browser null  true        browser   get browser   SERVER  HTTP USER AGENT            As kba explained in his answer  your browser sends a lot of information to the server while loading a webpage  Most websites use these User-agent information to determine the visitor s operating system  browser and various information

[php] Get operating system info

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