Node.js v4.0.0-rc.1 Documentation

OS#

Stability: 2 - Stable

Provides a few basic operating-system related utility functions.

Use require('os') to access this module.

os.tmpdir()#

Returns the operating system's default directory for temporary files.

os.homedir()#

Returns the home directory of the current user.

os.endianness()#

Returns the endianness of the CPU. Possible values are 'BE' for big endian or 'LE' for little endian.

os.hostname()#

Returns the hostname of the operating system.

os.type()#

Returns the operating system name. For example 'Linux' on Linux, 'Darwin' on OS X and 'Windows_NT' on Windows.

os.platform()#

Returns the operating system platform. Possible values are 'darwin', 'freebsd', 'linux', 'sunos' or 'win32'. Returns the value of process.platform.

os.arch()#

Returns the operating system CPU architecture. Possible values are 'x64', 'arm' and 'ia32'. Returns the value of process.arch.

os.release()#

Returns the operating system release.

os.uptime()#

Returns the system uptime in seconds.

os.loadavg()#

Returns an array containing the 1, 5, and 15 minute load averages.

The load average is a measure of system activity, calculated by the operating system and expressed as a fractional number. As a rule of thumb, the load average should ideally be less than the number of logical CPUs in the system.

The load average is a very UNIX-y concept; there is no real equivalent on Windows platforms. That is why this function always returns [0, 0, 0] on Windows.

os.totalmem()#

Returns the total amount of system memory in bytes.

os.freemem()#

Returns the amount of free system memory in bytes.

os.cpus()#

Returns an array of objects containing information about each CPU/core installed: model, speed (in MHz), and times (an object containing the number of milliseconds the CPU/core spent in: user, nice, sys, idle, and irq).

Example inspection of os.cpus: 

[ { model: 'Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU         860  @ 2.80GHz',
    speed: 2926,
    times:
     { user: 252020,
       nice: 0,
       sys: 30340,
       idle: 1070356870,
       irq: 0 } },
  { model: 'Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU         860  @ 2.80GHz',
    speed: 2926,
    times:
     { user: 306960,
       nice: 0,
       sys: 26980,
       idle: 1071569080,
       irq: 0 } },
  { model: 'Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU         860  @ 2.80GHz',
    speed: 2926,
    times:
     { user: 248450,
       nice: 0,
       sys: 21750,
       idle: 1070919370,
       irq: 0 } },
  { model: 'Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU         860  @ 2.80GHz',
    speed: 2926,
    times:
     { user: 256880,
       nice: 0,
       sys: 19430,
       idle: 1070905480,
       irq: 20 } },
  { model: 'Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU         860  @ 2.80GHz',
    speed: 2926,
    times:
     { user: 511580,
       nice: 20,
       sys: 40900,
       idle: 1070842510,
       irq: 0 } },
  { model: 'Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU         860  @ 2.80GHz',
    speed: 2926,
    times:
     { user: 291660,
       nice: 0,
       sys: 34360,
       idle: 1070888000,
       irq: 10 } },
  { model: 'Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU         860  @ 2.80GHz',
    speed: 2926,
    times:
     { user: 308260,
       nice: 0,
       sys: 55410,
       idle: 1071129970,
       irq: 880 } },
  { model: 'Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU         860  @ 2.80GHz',
    speed: 2926,
    times:
     { user: 266450,
       nice: 1480,
       sys: 34920,
       idle: 1072572010,
       irq: 30 } } ]

Note that since nice values are UNIX centric in Windows the nice values of all processors are always 0.

os.networkInterfaces()#

Get a list of network interfaces: 

{ lo:
   [ { address: '127.0.0.1',
       netmask: '255.0.0.0',
       family: 'IPv4',
       mac: '00:00:00:00:00:00',
       internal: true },
     { address: '::1',
       netmask: 'ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff',
       family: 'IPv6',
       mac: '00:00:00:00:00:00',
       internal: true } ],
  eth0:
   [ { address: '192.168.1.108',
       netmask: '255.255.255.0',
       family: 'IPv4',
       mac: '01:02:03:0a:0b:0c',
       internal: false },
     { address: 'fe80::a00:27ff:fe4e:66a1',
       netmask: 'ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff::',
       family: 'IPv6',
       mac: '01:02:03:0a:0b:0c',
       internal: false } ] }

Note that due to the underlying implementation this will only return network interfaces that have been assigned an address.

os.EOL#

A constant defining the appropriate End-of-line marker for the operating system.