user@localhost has changed

daiver · 02-19-2006, 09:45 PM

Hello. I noticed something weird today as soon as I goot WiFi enabled on my laptop. My user is no longer user@localhost, but user@fw-stby.dedicado.com.uy, which I presume has something to do with my ISP since it's called Dedicado.

Now, this doesn't happen on a wired connection. Does anyone know what caused this?

Im running Intel Pro Set 2200B/G in a Toshiba Satellite M65-SP811. My router is a Motorola WR850G. On this laptop, I'm running PCLinuxOS.

Thanks!

daiver · 02-20-2006, 09:13 AM

Anyone? I really don't have a clue of what's going on. =(

jschiwal · 02-20-2006, 09:17 AM

localhost only refers to the 127.0.0.1 lo interface and is not your computers hostname.
Every computer has a localhost which refers to itself. You may wish to download the NAG guide from the www.tldp.org website. ( Linux Network Administers Guide )

daiver · 02-20-2006, 11:11 AM

Hi, thanks for the reply. So this is completely normal? If I go wired, I get localhost but if I go wifi, it changes. Ill check out that manual.

Darin · 02-20-2006, 05:02 PM

Your computer doesn't have a hostname set by default, so the system uses 'localhost' as the hostname. When you connect to your wired network it doesn't set a hostname so nothing changes. When you connect to the wifi network it apparently sets a hostname, which DHCP is allowed to do, at which point the hostname system variable changes and you see that reflected when your prompt uses that variable. It is possible to configure a network connection to not request a hostname, how to set this up depends on what Linux tool you used to set up the connection initially.

daiver · 02-20-2006, 06:16 PM

Hi Darin, thanks for the response. I'm connecting to the WiFi network via de PCLOS Control Panel. I set the details once and then I forgot about it, it does it automagically every time I start a session.

Edit: I just looked in there and didn't find an option to not request a hostname.

Darin · 02-21-2006, 01:24 PM

I can only guess how PCLinuxOS is set up, but from a basic google for pclinux and hostname I found a mail thread that looks relevant

http://pclinuxonline.com/pipermail/p...er/004610.html

Quote:

For Dhclient:
In file: /etc/dhclient-eth0.conf (or wlan0, or whatever your NIC
device is)

interface "eth0" {
~ send fqdn.fqdn "mydesired.fullyqualified.hostname.com";
~ send fqdn.encoded on;
~ send fqdn.server-update off;
~ send host-name "mydesired.fullyqualified.hostname.com";
~ option host-name "mydesired.fullyqualified.hostname.com";
~ supersede domain-name "list.of.desired.domains.com
another.domain.com and.another.com";
~ prepend domain-name-servers xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx; #(use this if
you want to force a non-standard DNS server)
~ request subnet-mask, broadcast-address, time-offset, routers,
domain-name, domain-name-servers, host-name;
~ require subnet-mask, domain-name-servers;
~ script "/sbin/dhclient-script";

If you have two wired network cards, the files will be /etc/dhclient-eth0.conf and /etc/dhclient-eth1.conf, the wireless is most likely /etc/dhclient-wlan0.conf and really the only relevant option you need is the option host-name one. They expect a FQDN like 'mybox.mydomain.com' but it's probably safe to just put a single name in there, or even 'localhost.localdomain'