How to set the hostname? (CentOS/DHCP)

http://www.linode.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1027

-Chris

> http://www.linode.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1027

That is a good description of how to set up Webmin on CentOS, and I suppose Webmin knows how to set the hostname, but I would rather not run Webmin.

In most problems like this you can grep for hints, but since the default hostname comes from the DHCP server that approach doesn't work in this case :(

I think caker is referring to step 5 in that tutorial.

> Step Five

Update your hostname

 echo yourdomainnamehere >/etc/hostname  

 /bin/hostname -F /etc/hostname 

> Code:

echo yourdomainnamehere >/etc/hostname

Code:

/bin/hostname -F /etc/hostname

Ok, I see, Webmin not required I guess. I read too fast, please excuse me.

But this is what I already tried. The problem is on the next reboot I'm back to the original hostname assigned by Linode, I guess it is coming from the DHCP server. Should I invoke /bin/hostname in /etc/rc.local?

Doesn't seem right to set one hostname during startup and immediately switch every time.

I guess I could switch to a static IP configuration if I have to.

I'm using Gentoo myself, and it handles this without problems.

Just to double-check, what is the actual contents of your /etc/hostname file at the moment?

> Just to double-check, what is the actual contents of your /etc/hostname file at the moment?

It contains the fully qualified domain name (ending in ".com"). It's three levels: ..com. Resolves in DNS to the IP address of the Linode UML machine.

Just for the record: I fixed the "HOSTNAME=" line in /etc/sysconfig/network and it seems to be working for me now.

Finally found the right Google keywords and picked up on a discussion from 2003 at LinuxForums.org: http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/topic-350-0.html.

I still have /etc/hostname set but I'm not sure it is required for CentOS.