NAME
hostname — set or display name of current host system
DESCRIPTION
The
hostname
command displays the name of the current host, as given in the
gethostname()
system call (see
gethostname(2)).
Users who have
appropriate privileges
can set the hostname by giving the argument
name_of_host;
this is usually done in the startup script
/sbin/init.d/hostname.
The
name_of_host
argument is restricted to
MAXHOSTNAMELEN
characters as defined in
<sys/param.h>.
The system might be known by other names
if networking products are supported.
See the node manager documentation supplied with your system.
WARNINGS
If the
name_of_host
argument is specified,
the resulting host name change lasts only until the system is rebooted.
To change the host name permanently,
run the special initialization script
/sbin/set_parms
(see
Using Your HP Workstation).
Many types of networking services are supported on HP-UX,
each of which uses a separately assigned system name and naming convention.
To ensure predictable system behavior,
it is essential that system names (also called host names or node names)
be assigned in such a manner that they do not create conflicts
when the various networking facilities interact with each other.
The system does not rely on a single system name in a specific location,
partly because different services use dissimilar name formats as
explained below.
The
hostname
and
uname
commands assign system names as follows:
where
sys
represents the assigned system name.
It is
strongly
recommended that
sys
be identical for all commands and locations
and that the optional
.x.y.z...
follow the specified notation for the particular ARPA/NFS environment.
Internet names are also frequently called host names or domain names
(which are different from NFS domain names).
Refer to
hostname(5)
for more information about Internet naming conventions.
Whenever the system name is changed in any file
or by the use of any of the above commands,
it should also be changed in all other locations as well.
Other files or commands in addition to those above
(such as
/etc/uucp/Permissions
if used to circumvent
uname,
for example)
may contain or alter system names.
To ensure correct operation,
they should also use the same system name.
System names are normally assigned by the
/sbin/init.d/hostname
script at start-up, and should not be altered elsewhere.
Setting a hostname of more than 64 bytes is possible
only with the appropriate configuration options enabled.
It is strongly recommended that all related documentation be
completely understood before setting a larger hostname.
A hostname larger than 64 bytes can cause anomalous or
incorrect behavior in applications which use the
hostname
command or the
gethostname()
system function to access the name.
AUTHOR
hostname
was developed by the University of California,
Berkeley.
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