How to change your Hostname on Debian

FerdieQO

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After having a fresh VPS or reinstall my VPS to install a new hosting control panel. How can I change the hostname of a Debian Linux system permanently using the command line tools?
 

LJSHost

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To make a permanent host name change on Debian edit the /etc/hostname file. Replace the contents of the file with your new host name.

Then run: /etc/init.d/hostname.sh start

This will make the change active, you can check the host name by using the hostname command.
 

VirtuBox

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On Debian/Ubuntu Linux, hostname is set in two files: /etc/hostname and /etc/hosts.

  • /etc/hostname: short hostname, not FQDN.
Code:
mx
  • /etc/hosts: static table lookup for hostnames. Warning: Please list the FQDN hostname as first item.
# Part of file: /etc/hosts
Code:
127.0.0.1   mx.example.com mx
 

LJSHost

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MX is the host name in this example mx.example.com is the FQDN
No, you do not need to add the host name after the FQDN

Either of these examples with /etc/hosts are fine:

127.0.0.1 servername.domain.com
127.0.0.1 servername.domain.com servername
 

VirtuBox

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VirtuBox
Yes you can use the subdomain of your choice to have a FQDN. But you have to add whatyouwant.yourdomain.com whatyouwant to make it work.
To verify you have done it properly use, you should have this result :
Code:
[SIZE=4]root@host# hostname
-> host

root@host# hostname -f 
-> host.yourdomain.com[/SIZE]
If you are planning to use a DNS server or an email server, you have to use a FQDN.
 
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