hostname

[Derek Broughton]

Howard Coles Jr. wrote:

> On Saturday 26 May 2007 04:55:00 pm Thilo Six wrote:
>> Stew Schneider wrote the following on 25.05.2007 03:37
>>
>> > OK...this is probably just real dumb, but how do you change the host
>> > name?
>> >
>> > sudo hostname george will change the host to george, but then you get
>> > an error from gethostname(). Changing /etc/hostname and rebooting will,
>> > iirc, do it, but that seems a kludge.
>>
>> in case of changing the hostname you nee to edit:
>> /etc/hosts   and
>> /etc/hostname
>>
>> but i dunno if they take place immediately.
>> probably reboot is needed.
>>
> Amazingly enough it does take place fairly immediately, however, some
> applications aren't as dynamic as others and some confusion can set in. 
> So, a reboot is generally suggested in this situation.

Another thought on this - the apps that I have that I recall having problems
are, not surprisingly, network related.  All my networking daemons (NNTP,
SMTP, fetchmail, etc) are set to restart when a network interface comes up. 
So if I changed my hostname, I would probably just need to unplug/replug my
ethernet cable to have everything work.  
-- 
derek