The hostnamectl command¶

The hostnamectl command provides a proper API used to control Linux system hostname and change its related settings. The command also helps to change the hostname without actually locating and editing the /etc/hostname file on a given system.

Syntax¶

$ hostnamectl [OPTIONS...] COMMAND ... where COMMAND can be any of the following

status: Used to check the current hostname settings

set-hostname NAME: Used to set system hostname

set-icon-name NAME: Used to set icon name for host

Example¶

1. Basic usage to view the current hostnames $ hostnamectl or $ hostnamectl status

2. To change the static host name to myhostname. It may or may not require root access $ hostnamectl set-hostname myhostname --static

3. To set or change a transient hostname $ hostnamectl set-hostname myotherhostname --transient

4. To set the pretty hostname. The name that is to be set needs to be in the double quote(” “). $ hostname set-hostname "prettyname" --pretty