Change the hostname

This is how to change the hostname as well as the domainname of a machine running Debian or a Debian-like OS.

Warning

Changing the hostname on a running Linux system will break X on that machine—that means you will probably get in trouble while running in a graphical interface. It won't cause any trouble in a virtual terminal (Ctrl+Alt+F1) or remotely via SSH.

Temporary, immediate change

gert@oldhostname:~# hostname mynewhostname

Now close your shell (or log out), open a new one and you'll see the hostname is changed.

You can do the same thing for any of the domain names, just exchange the hostname command with any of the ones below (taken from the manpage of hostname):

domainname - show or set the system's NIS/YP domain name
ypdomainname - show or set the system's NIS/YP domain name
nisdomainname - show or set the system's NIS/YP domain name
dnsdomainname - show the system's DNS domain name

This change will not survive a reboot. See below for a permanent way to change it.

Permanent change

Edit the file containing your hostname, for example, just overwrite it with the new one:

# echo "mynewhostname" > /etc/hostname

Then, change the entries accordingly in /etc/hosts:

127.0.1.1       oldhostname

Usually only the line starting with 127.0.1.1 has to be modified.

Now, run the hostname init-script to finish everything up:

# /etc/init.d/hostname.sh start

for Debian or

# service hostname start

for Ubuntu.

Complaints after the last command about the service not running can be discarded; it's not a real service, rather it's just a script run at boot time.

Also, don't forget to change the settings for other services like your mail server, usually in /etc/mailname.

Check

To verify the system has picked up the new hostname, hostname can show you what it sees.

$ hostname        # just print the hostname
$ hostname -f     # print the fully qualified domain name

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