How to confirm RedHat Enterprise Linux version? [closed]

Question

I am a bit confused by the fact that although I installed RHEL 5.1 from DVD (RedHat/5.1.x86_64), when I issue command:

cat /etc/redhat-release 

I got:

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 5.5 (Tikanga) 

What does this mean? is this to be the release version or kernel version? Is there another way to confirm the real version of RHEL?

I am asking this question because there will be certain applications that would depend on this.

Many thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Avoid /etc/*release* files and run this command instead, it is far more reliable and gives more details:

rpm -qia '*release*' 

Answer 2

I assume that you've run yum upgrade. That will in general update you to the newest minor release.

Your main resources for determining the version are /etc/redhat_release and lsb_release -a