hi,

When I installed redhat 8 it seems to have assummed my windows computer identification name (I have dual boot with XP) as my hostname.

In windows my computer identification name is "BAZZA". So when I boot up to linux my hostname is "BAZZA" (eg, I get a "Welcome to BAZZA" message in the login screen.) I have tried to change this to "localhost" using the command:

[root@BAZZA root]# hostname localhost
[root@BAZZA root]# hostname
localhost

Which seems to work for the remainder of the session but when I reboot the hostname reverts to "BAZZA." Is there anyway I can permanent change the hostname back to local host?

Thanks Andy

This might help you go too google an type root it should bring up an online Book which will give you an Idea on command lines or should it be shell lines any way go through the book reed it all hope it helps with your problem.

Or, edit the file

/etc/hostname

and put in the name you want.
Can be anything.

I don't recommend using "localhost" as your name for various reasons. (People on your LAN pinging "localhost" will get their own system's 'localhost' IP, which is 127.0.0.1, and thus won't be able to ping your hostname.)

don't forget an entry into /etc/hosts, /etc/networks and /etc/sysconfig/network.

To check, do a %uname -u

You may not even have and /etc/hostname.

I remember solaris and DEC alphas use/etc/nodename.

My /etc/hosts already reads

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

there is no mention of BAZZA. Yet when I reboot I still login to BAZZA and have [root@BAZZA]# at the command prompt. I do not seem to have the files /etc/networks, /etc/sysconfig/network either. Any ideas? Im on Redhat 8.0

Cheers Andy

Your /etc/hosts doesn't define your own systems hostname.. scroll up to Wolven's response.. and I would suggest not naming your machine localhost as well unless this is the only machine on your network.. etc.
To change by command line just type:

hostname [new-name]

A friend gave me what I think is the answer. It's your DHCP server. It cached your hostname and MAC address.

To fix, stop using WinXP If you are in control of you DHCP server, then you can usually clear out that cached entry. There may also be a way to override the cache, but don't know how right now. May be able to google it.

If I find a solution, I'll let you know.

I too believe it's your DHCP.

But first.. let's be sure. Are you using DHCP?

Slick.

yeah Im running a DHCP client for my internet connection and a DHCP server for my network. Its only a two computer network connected with a cross over cable. So basically my machine runs Linux and connects to the internet and the other computer connects to my machine.

In response to wolvens post I do not have a file /etc/hostname either.

/etc/hostname isn't anything I've ever heard about.

You should make sure you have an entry in /etc/hosts though.

But I suspect if you've never set your hostname, then DHCP is doing it for you. You might want to look in :

[edit]
Doh! Hit the wrong button... Continuing
[/edit]

/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts

There are a bunch of scripts in there which control your network connections. For the sake of completeness I'm going to go into a great deal of detail here, but the solution is fairly simple

ifup - is a script which 'ups' a network connection. It contains the following lines :

if need_hostname; then
PUMPARGS="${PUMPARGS} --lookup-hostname"
DHCPCDARGS="${DHCPCDARGS} -H"
fi

The -H on the end of DHCPCDARGS is important here. It tells dhcp to 'set the hostname of this machine to be what DHCP tells me my interface is called'.

need_hostname is defined in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/network-functions

it looks like this :

need_hostname()
{
if [ "`hostname`" = "(none)" -o "`hostname`" = "localhost" -o \
"`hostname`" = "localhost.localdomain" ]; then
return 0
else
return 1
fi
}

Which basically says 'if I don't have a hostname, or my hostname is localhost (or localhost.localdomain) then I need a hostname...

There are two ways you can do this. You can either manually (or in a script at bootup) type 'hostname humbert' or you can set it in

/etc/sysconfig/network

where the file should contain the following :

NETWORKING=yes
HOSTNAME='humbert'

where 'humbert' is the name of your machine. Once you set that you should be good.

Allternatively, if you don't like the way that DCHP works, you can remove the -H from the DHCP section of the 'ifup' script, and it won't ever do it again.

*bounce*

Slick.