From the course: Learning CentOS Linux

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Setting the hostname

Setting the hostname

From the course: Learning CentOS Linux

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Setting the hostname

- [Instructor] During the installation process, I didn't change the system's hostname, or the name that this computer has internally. Out of the box, the system is called localhost, which isn't terribly useful when you have more than one system you're connecting to. If you have three terminal windows up and they all say localhost, how do you know, at a glance, which one you're using? If you set up a service like mail, that uses the hostname, how easily do you tell where a message came from? A hostname should be useful and memorable. It needs to be 64 characters or less and can only contain alphanumeric characters and dashes. There's a wide range of opinions out there on what constitutes a good name. Some people like to name systems after famous scientists, or chemical elements, or fantasy references and sometimes administrators in organizations will use some kind of notation that describes a lot of information about the server and even its location, encoded in a way that makes sense…

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