How to change host name Red hat 9.0 machine?

Bagleemo · 01-10-2004, 11:44 AM

Hello -

I have two machines running Red Hat 9.0 and both of them are called localhost. Since I'd like to have them connect over my wireless network, I figure I should change their names so they are different. But if I change the computer hostname in the Network Configuration applet, DNS tab, my Gnome gives me a weird error message when it starts up and things don't work or work poorly. Wish I wrote down that error message....
Some thing about the etc/hosts file, that prevents programs that need to access the system via a network link from doing so, making most gnome programs die a gnarly death.

So ... how does one go about changing the computer's name?

-Amos

jtshaw · 01-10-2004, 12:45 PM

/etc/hostname is where you put the name of a computer. You can edit this file with a text editor but you will have to be root to do so. Localhost should always be a reference to the localmachine regardless of what machine you are on. It should point to 127.0.0.1 which is the lo or local loopback networking device so services running local have something to bind to for connections.

Bagleemo · 01-10-2004, 01:41 PM

Great - thanks!
Sorry I'm so dense, but can you give me an example of what exactly this file should look like?
Last time I tried to edit that file it was hard to return to a safe and working state.
Let's say I wanted my computer to be called Fred. What would a working hostname file look like?

-Thanks very much for your help -

Amos

DavidiaN · 12-24-2004, 08:01 PM

Yeah same here. I nearly messed up my system trying to set the hostname as described in man hostname. hehe

I run PCLinuxOS and have configured my hostname in etc/hosts and it appears there just as I want.. but when I start up the console it still says @alopa while before upgrading my system I managed to get it to work like that.. but now for some reason it won change the hostame for me

Winno · 12-25-2004, 11:03 PM

The GUI tool system-config-network (I think) is what I usually use on RH systems.

On my FC2 system, I don't seem to have the /etc/hostname file. The closest match is /etc/hosts. Here's my copy, if it helps. It does seem a little crummy though.

Code:

# Do not remove the following line, or various programs
# that require network functionality will fail.
127.0.0.1       localhost.localdomain   gwdesktop       localhost
127.0.0.1       gwdesktop

Note that my machine is called 'gwdesktop'.

DavidiaN · 12-29-2004, 07:57 AM

Ok, I got it to work

Just login as root. Open a console and type hostname -v whateverhostname| -F /etc/hosts
and it will change the hostname in whateverhostname. Not sure if the | -F /etc/hosts command is really necessary. It might work by just typing hostame -v whateverhostname.