- How do I change the computer name?
- 14 Answers 14
- How do I find out my computer name in Linux?
- What hostname command do in Linux?
- How do I find my hardware name in Linux?
- How do I find my hostname?
- How do I find my hostname and IP address in Linux?
- How do I print the hostname of the system in Linux?
- How to find the IP address of the computer in Linux?
- How to print the domain name of the computer in Linux?
- How To Find Computer Name In Windows, Linux, MacOSX?
- Find Computer Name In Windows
- Find Computer Name via About PC
- Find Computer Name via PowerShell
- Find Computer Name via MS-DOS
- Find Computer Name In Linux
- Find Computer Name with hostname Command In Bash
- Find Computer Name with hostnamectl Command In Bash
- Find Computer Name with /etc/hostname File
- Find Computer Name In MacOSX
- Find Computer Name via System Preferences
- Find Computer Name via Terminal
- How to get the computer name (not its hostname)?
- 5 Answers 5
How do I change the computer name?
Try editing /etc/ hosts. gksudo gedit /etc/hosts and replace server-name.belkin by whatever name you desire.
@warren the current consensus is to close by «quality»: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/147643/… Since «quality» is not measurable, I just go by upvotes. 😉 Likely it comes down to which question hit the best newbie Google keywords on the title.
14 Answers 14
You need to edit the computer name in two files:
These will both need administrative access, so run
Replace any instances of the existing computer name with your new one. When complete run
sudo service hostname start
The name will also be changed if you restart your computer.
sudo service hostname restart doesn’t work on default install of ubuntu server 14.04 on AWS. I had to do full server restart
On 14.04, I simply ran sudo hostname , and that did the trick. I didn’t notice any immediate change, but when I opened a new terminal, I saw my hostname had indeed changed.
hostnamectl set-hostname on 13.10+ desktop
This is the best way if you have systemd (13.10 onwards) and if cloud-init is not active (see below):
hostnamectl set-hostname 'new-hostname'
18.04 onwards: cloud-init
18.04 Introduced cloud-init which can control setting of the hostname so hostnamectl changes it won’t stick after a reboot if cloud-init is installed. TODO: how to check if it is installed, is it installed by default on the desktop image or just server?
If you want hostnamectl changes to stay after a reboot, then you’ll need to edit the cloud-init config files, disable cloud-init’s hostname set/update module:
sudo sed -i 's/preserve_hostname: false/preserve_hostname: true/' /etc/cloud/cloud.cfg
or disable cloud-init entirely:
sudo touch /etc/cloud/cloud-init.disabled
I had to add my new-hostname into /etc/hosts else using sudo would cause some error «sudo: unable to resolve host xxxxx»
Working also with Ubuntu 20 LTS as desktop, and only using sudo hostnamectl set-hostname myNewName . After new terminal and after boot (!), the` myNewName`, no problem.
- Edit /etc/hostname , make the name change, save the file.
- You should also make the same changes in /etc/hosts file
- Run sudo service hostname start
As long as you have no application settings depending on the ‘old’ hostname, you should be ok 😉
WARNING: If you do this without changing /etc/hosts accordingly you will be unable to use sudo because your hostname will fail to lookup
You’re right regarding editing the /etc/hosts, i forgot about it (just added it to my answer), though sudo seems to be working fine for me without changing it (i’ve restarted the machine and it still works)
It’s ok, you can do that as hostname is now a service managed from upstart . It’ll do exactly the same thing,restart the service.
Warning: won’t work with Ubuntu 18+ which is running cloud-init by default, which controls hostname on boot.
It is safe to do, you just need to be sure you edit both the system hostname configuration file (/etc/hostname) and the hostname name resolution file (/etc/hosts). From a terminal execute the following:
sudo -s editor /etc/hostname editor /etc/hosts shutdown -ry now
Warning: won’t work with Ubuntu 18+ which is running cloud-init by default, which controls hostname on boot.
In addition to editing /etc/hosts and /etc/hostname, various services might have issues with the change as well. Mysql and postfix are installed by default in ubuntu. A broken postfix won’t affect most ubuntu users, since it’s a background email server that isn’t used by much.
sudo editor /etc/postfix/main.cf sudo service postfix restart
The default config for mysql doesn’t use hostname, so it will work fine as-is. If you have customized it, edit the files in /etc/mysql/ and restart the service.
You may also want to edit /etc/motd (message of the day), which is shown on virtual terminals and remote logins. That one won’t harm anything though.
Other services that you may have installed that would need fixing are apache, bind9, etc. In each case, find and edit the hostname in their config and restart the service.
How do I find out my computer name in Linux?
To see your computer name from Ubuntu’s desktop, just click on the Shutdown icon on the top panel next to the date and time, and select Lock screen. The lock screen will appear (if it does not, just click anywhere on the desktop or press any key) and your computer name will be displayed.
What hostname command do in Linux?
hostname command in Linux is used to obtain the DNS(Domain Name System) name and set the system’s hostname or NIS(Network Information System) domain name. A hostname is a name which is given to a computer and it attached to the network.
Where do you find computer name?
On the desktop, right-click the My Computer icon and select Properties from the menu that appears. Click on the Computer Name tab in the dialog box that appears. The computer name will be listed in the Full Computer Name field.
How do I find my hostname in terminal?
Finding a Host Name on a Windows based PC:
- Open Command Prompt (Start Menu ⇒ Lookup “Command Prompt”).
- From the Command Prompt shell type in “hostname” and press enter.
- The name that populates your shell is the Host Name of your machine and is what we use in the Active Directory to find your computer.
How do I find my hardware name in Linux?
Basic Linux Commands to Check Hardware and System Information
- Printing Machine Hardware Name (uname –m uname –a)
- lscpu.
- hwinfo- Hardware Information.
- lspci- List PCI.
- lsscsi-List sci devices.
- lsusb- List usb buses and device details.
- lsblk- List block devices.
- df-disk space of file systems.
How do I find my hostname?
- From the Start menu, select All Programs or Programs, then Accessories, and then Command Prompt.
- In the window that opens, at the prompt, enter hostname . The result on the next line of the command prompt window will display the hostname of the machine without the domain.
How do I find my hostname and IP address in Linux?
You can combine grep command and hostname to look at IP address from /etc/hosts file. here `hostname` will return the output of the hostname command and great will then search for that word in /etc/hostname.
How do I find my alias name in Linux?
To view the name of the DNS domain and FQDN (Fully Qualified Domain Name) of your machine, use the -f and -d switches respectively. And the -A enables you to see all the FQDNs of the machine. To display the alias name (i.e., substitute names), if used for the host name, use the -a flag.
How to find computer name using hostname command in Linux?
How do I print the hostname of the system in Linux?
How to find the IP address of the computer in Linux?
How to print the domain name of the computer in Linux?
How To Find Computer Name In Windows, Linux, MacOSX?
A computer name is used to describe a computer unique. Even it is not guaranteed to be unique it is very useful to describe different systems which may be Windows, Linux, and MacOSX. Computer names can be displayed in different ways in different operating systems. A computer name also called a hostname which can be used in DNS-related identification.
Find Computer Name In Windows
Windows computer name can be displayed in different ways like GUI , MS-DOS, PowerShell etc. Windows computer name is also used in Windows Domains in order to describe the Windows system unique and manage properly.
Find Computer Name via About PC
The computer name of a Windows system is povided via the About PC screen for Windows 8 and Windows 10. Type “about” in the Start Menu and open the “About your PC” item like below.
The computer name is displayed in the Device name row like below.
Find Computer Name via PowerShell
The PowerShell command line interface provides environment variable $env:computername which displays the computer name.
Also the hostname command can be used to print the computer name which is actually a MS-DOS command.
Find Computer Name via MS-DOS
The MS-DOS provides the hostname command by default which prints the computer name.
Find Computer Name In Linux
Linux provides different ways and command in order to display the computer name.
Find Computer Name with hostname Command In Bash
Bash is the standard command line interface for the most of the Linux distributions. The hostname command can be used to display computer name.
Find Computer Name with hostnamectl Command In Bash
The hostnamectl command is the next generation of the hostname command. The hostnamectl provides the computer name as well as more information like machine ID, operating system etc.
Find Computer Name with /etc/hostname File
The computer hostname information is stored in the “/etc/hostname” file in most of the Linux distributions. The computer name information can be printed into the terminal with the cat command like below.
Find Computer Name In MacOSX
MacOSX also uses similar interface to the Linux. The computer name is generally named as hostname and can be displayed via GUI or with different commands.
Find Computer Name via System Preferences
The GUI way of finding computer name of the MacOSX is likebelow.
- Click on the Apple logo on the top left corner.
- Click the System Preferences
- Click on the Sharing
- The computer name is displayed in the Computer Name field.
Find Computer Name via Terminal
Similar to the Linux command line interface the hostname command can be used to print the computer name of the MacOSX system via terminal. Type the following command into the terminal.
How to get the computer name (not its hostname)?
All the results of my searches end up having something to do with hostname or uname -n . I looked up the manual for both, looking for sneaky options, but no luck. I am trying to find an equivalent of OSX’s scutil —get ComputerName on Linux systems. On Mac OS X, the computer name is used as a human-readable identifier for the computer; it’s shown in various management screens (e.g. on inventory management, Bonjour-based remote access, . ) and serves as the default hostname (after filtering to handle spaces etc.).
I might be wrong, but defining the name of the computer as its network name means that it doesn’t have a fixed name, right? When you install a Linux or OSX on a machine, you usually choose a name for that computer (which is the default network name I assume). For example my laptop might be named «FooBar» but when I connect to a network at work I get a hostname such as «machine42.work.localnetwork».
@Sh3ljohn what purpose does computername is osx serve? I don’t think there’s any equivalent in linux system.
Did you give some name other than hostname when installing that computer? Try searching for that name in /etc: grep -ri ‘name’ /etc
@Bibek_G I would like to use this to identify the machine on which I am running from a software of mine. UUID is insufficient because there might be several OS’s installed on the same disk which in turn run on the same machine.
5 Answers 5
The closest equivalent to a human-readable (and human-chosen) name for any computer running Linux is the default hostname stored in /etc/hostname . On some (not all) Linux distributions, this name is entered during installation as the computee’s name (but with network hostname constraints, unlike macOS’s computer name). This can be namespaced, i.e. each UTS namespace can have a different hostname.
Systems running systemd distinguish three different hostnames, including a “pretty” human-readable name which is supposed to be descriptive in a similar fashion to macOS’s computer name; this can be set and retrieved using hostnamectl ’s —pretty option. The other two hostnames are the static hostname, which is the default hostname described above, and the transient hostname which reflects the current network configuration.
Systemd also supports a chassis type (e.g. “tablet”) and an icon for the host; see systemd-hostnamed.service .
But this file is often used to set hostname and uname -n , and @Sh3ljohn explicitly wanted to avoid the output of those two commands.