When was a system built

ieuuk · #1 21st August 2005, 11:15 PM

Hey all,

How can you work out when the build date of a system was without having it written down on a post-stick note somewhere?

Thanks,

fsck · #2 21st August 2005, 11:23 PM

I don't know an official way, but on the assumption there is at least *one* file on the system which hasn't changed since install, I tried "ls -lct /etc" and got a handful of files dated Dec 11 2004, which is about right I think.

ieuuk · #3 21st August 2005, 11:30 PM

thats great thanks... that works out about right for me. I cross referenced my system which i roughly know the date i built it and it works out about right. Now i can use it where i dont know when it was built.

If anyone knows of a official way that would be great but thanks fsck for that way... will be a great help

Jman · #4 22nd August 2005, 03:33 AM

RPMs do have an install date. So

Code:

rpm -qi fedora-release

should say the date Fedora was installed/upgraded.

mjman · #5 22nd August 2005, 06:01 AM

mmm, be careful, using ls, I can find files that are timestamped before I built the box. Assumedly, the timestamps are from when that file was last updated, which could have been in the fc4 dev stage.