How do I know if my linux kernel is running in 32bit or 64bit?

uname -a

will tell you the kernel - the end bit tells you the architecture.

Two examples:

My mac:

Darwin Mac.local 9.8.0 Darwin Kernel Version 9.8.0: Wed Jul 15 16:55:01 PDT 2009; root:xnu-1228.15.4~1/RELEASE_I386 i386

My Dreamhost hosting:

Linux ecco 2.6.24.5-serf-xeon-c6.1-grsec #1 SMP Tue Oct 7 06:18:04 PDT 2008 x86_64 GNU/Linux

i386 = 32 bit

x86_64 = 64 bit

uname -m will give you the architecture you kernel is compiled for. If it prints i686 then your kernel is 32 bit, if x86_64 then it's 64 bit, assuming you have an Intel/AMD chip.

I think the most precise way is

getconf LONG_BIT

here it exactly shows 64

found on this tip

getconf is from package libc-bin (on ubuntu)

If you want to see only the platform that you are running on, you can use

uname -i

The full list of supported options for uname is

$ uname --help
Usage: uname [OPTION]...
Print certain system information.  With no OPTION, same as -s.

  -a, --all                print all information, in the following order,
                             except omit -p and -i if unknown:
  -s, --kernel-name        print the kernel name
  -n, --nodename           print the network node hostname
  -r, --kernel-release     print the kernel release
  -v, --kernel-version     print the kernel version
  -m, --machine            print the machine hardware name
  -p, --processor          print the processor type or "unknown"
  -i, --hardware-platform  print the hardware platform or "unknown"
  -o, --operating-system   print the operating system
      --help     display this help and exit
      --version  output version information and exit