Hostname Info and Management with hostnamectl

Use hostnamectl to view and update hostname metadata

I’ve just realised that I have been managing hostnames the old, manual way on most of my servers:

• check /etc/hosts
• update network configuration scripts
• if necessary, edit /etc/hostname
• reboot

But the same can be accomplished much easier on most of the modern Linux distros and releases: just use the hostnamectl command.

Without any parameters, hostnamectl will show you current settings:

greys@becky:~ $ hostnamectl
Static hostname: becky
Icon name: computer
Machine ID: 18634e1404184594bc66ddacfba0bf43
Boot ID: 7f9b03a40fdf492bb0c0dd3b6f6a7e94
Operating System: Raspbian GNU/Linux 9 (stretch)
Kernel: Linux 4.14.48-v7+
Architecture: arm

There’s quite a few parameters that hostnamectl command takes, all implementing additional flexibility in naming and tracking your nodes on infrastructure.

• set-hostname – actually configuring the hostname (you don’t need to know config file locations, just enter the hostname)
• set-chassis – easy way of confirming the hardware your OS is running on (and whether it’s a VM or not)
• set-deployment – option to specify if your Linux box is development, staging or production
• set-location – allows you to specify geographical location of the server (freeform text)

For example, here’s how I can specify that my Raspberry Pi is a server grade hardware:

root@becky:~# hostnamectl set-chassis "server"

… if we check now, we will see the Chassis field showing:

root@becky:~# hostnamectl
Static hostname: becky
Icon name: computer-server
Chassis: server
Machine ID: 18634e1404184594bc66ddacfba0bf43
Boot ID: 7f9b03a40fdf492bb0c0dd3b6f6a7e94
Operating System: Raspbian GNU/Linux 9 (stretch)
Kernel: Linux 4.14.48-v7+
Architecture: arm

See Also

• Linux Commands
• Advanced Unix Commands