This reminds me... My server demands to be known as hostname.local on my network. The other machines just respond to just hostname. I really should figure out why that is.
this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2026
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There's another way to change the hostname that isn't etc/hosts?
no, you might have misunderstood
/etc/hosts is not where the hostname is configured
/etc/hostname for the actual hostname, and a mapping in /etc/hosts pointing it at a 127.x.x.x address
Ohh right yes. I only ever touch hostname once during install and then only hosts after that
Isn't this what hostnamectl is supposed to handle?
it modifies /etc/hostname for you, but doesn't seem to touch /etc/hosts
i still prefer hostnamectl, but i'm now unsure of what benefit it offers over editing /etc/hostname directly
Laughs in Alpine.
Laughs louder in Void, Gentoo, and Devuan.
I know this is the preferred way to do it now, but I sometimes worry that abstracting where things are configured in an is that configures everything in a file.
You used to only have to check two places to change a hostname.
Oldmanyellsatsky.jpg
yep, I used that command to modify the hostname, rather than edit /etc/hostname directly
Interesting. I’ve changed my hostname on a few machines throughout the past and never ran into this. Good to know if I ever run into this in the future.
You guys are having own hostname in hosts file?
Never, there's no need for it. I can reach it with localhost or 127.0.0.1, so why would I even put it in?
seems like a pretty common practice across Linux distributions
/etc/hostname for the actual hostname, and a mapping in /etc/hosts pointing it at a 127.x.x.x address
Lost my mind a few years ago over this quirk. Now I always change both files when I want to change the hostname.
Nothing is worse than waiting for sudo to time out. I forget how long it would take, but it always feels like ages.
It’s always been wild to me how the seemingly-simplest change (“what is the name of this computer”) has so many little gotchas and quirks.
If you have myhostname set for hosts in /etc/nsswitch.conf it shall take care of this for you (should be the default on most systemd distros I believe? not sure)
i'm guessing a few things somehow consume /etc/hosts mappings without going through nss /shrug