10.2 Host names

Checking and changing the hostname is done of 2 basic commands. hostname to check the hostname and hostnamectl to control, change and check the hostname.

Checking the hostname

Display the current host name.

hostname

Result:

[root@rhcsa ~]# hostname
rhcsa.greateracademy.local

Or with hostnamectl.

hostnamectl status

Result will look similiar to this:

[root@rhcsa ~]# hostnamectl status
   Static hostname: rhcsa.greateracademy.local
         Icon name: computer-vm
           Chassis: vm
        Machine ID: 761eb1a7c2cc48198712a57c9f7cccc4
           Boot ID: 677a772e4c7c4bc8a8b9953bc5444b05
    Virtualization: kvm
  Operating System: CentOS Linux 8 (Core)
       CPE OS Name: cpe:/o:centos:centos:8
            Kernel: Linux 4.18.0-80.el8.x86_64
      Architecture: x86-64

This gives a lot of information as you can see. The most important information for us is the Static hostname: rhcsa.greateracademy.local this is the FQDN (Fully Qualified Domain Name) which means hostname rhcsa together with the domain name greateracademy.local.

Changing the hostname

Set a static hostname to match the current transient hostname.

Change the host name to rhcsa[xx].greateracademy.local Replace the X with your student number.

hostnamectl set-hostname rhcsa.greateracademy.local

View the configuration file providing the hostname at network start.

cat /etc/hostname

hostname

Display the hostname status at a config file:

[root@rhcsa ~]# hostname
rhcsa

Or with the hostnamectl command:

[root@rhcsa ~]# hostnamectl status
   Static hostname: rhcsa.greateracademy.local
         Icon name: computer-vm
           Chassis: vm
        Machine ID: 761eb1a7c2cc48198712a57c9f7cccc4
           Boot ID: 677a772e4c7c4bc8a8b9953bc5444b05
    Virtualization: kvm
  Operating System: CentOS Linux 8 (Core)
       CPE OS Name: cpe:/o:centos:centos:8
            Kernel: Linux 4.18.0-80.el8.x86_64
      Architecture: x86-64