hostnamectl

systemd
Developer Lennart Poettering lennart@poettering.net
hostnamectl 1
hostnamectl Control the system hostname
`hostnamectl` OPTIONS COMMAND

## Description

`hostnamectl` may be used to query and change the system hostname and related settings.

This tool distinguishes three different hostnames: the high-level "pretty" hostname which might include all kinds of special characters (e.g. "Lennart's Laptop"), the static hostname which is used to initialize the kernel hostname at boot (e.g. "lennarts-laptop"), and the transient hostname which is a default received from network configuration. If a static hostname is set, and is valid (something other than localhost), then the transient hostname is not used.

Note that the pretty hostname has little restrictions on the characters used, while the static and transient hostnames are limited to the usually accepted characters of Internet domain names.

The static hostname is stored in `/etc/hostname`, see hostname 5 for more information. The pretty hostname, chassis type, and icon name are stored in `/etc/machine-info`, see machine-id 5.

## Options

The following options are understood:

`--no-ask-password`

  Do not query the user for authentication for privileged operations.

`--static`
`--transient`
`--pretty`

  If `status` is used (or no explicit command is given) and one of those fields is given, `hostnamectl` will print out just this selected hostname.

  If used with `set-hostname`, only the selected hostname(s) will be updated. When more than one of those options is used, all the specified hostnames will be updated.

The following commands are understood:

`status`

  Show current system hostname and related information.

`set-hostname NAME`

  Set the system hostname to NAME. By default, this will alter the pretty, the static, and the transient hostname alike; however, if one or more of `--static`, `--transient`, `--pretty` are used, only the selected hostnames are changed. If the pretty hostname is being set, and static or transient are being set as well, the specified hostname will be simplified in regards to the character set used before the latter are updated. This is done by replacing spaces with `-` and removing special characters. This ensures that the pretty and the static hostname are always closely related while still following the validity rules of the specific name. This simplification of the hostname string is not done if only the transient and/or static host names are set, and the pretty host name is left untouched.

  Pass the empty string `` as the hostname to reset the selected hostnames to their default (usually `localhost`).

`set-icon-name NAME`

  Set the system icon name to NAME. The icon name is used by some graphical applications to visualize this host. The icon name should follow the Icon Naming Specification.

  Pass an empty string to reset the icon name to the default value, which is determined from chassis type (see below) and possibly other parameters.

`set-chassis TYPE`

  Set the chassis type to TYPE. The chassis type is used by some graphical applications to visualize the host or alter user interaction. Currently, the following chassis types are defined: `desktop`, `laptop`, `server`, `tablet`, `handset`, `watch`, as well as the special chassis types `vm` and `container` for virtualized systems that lack an immediate physical chassis.

  Pass an empty string to reset the chassis type to the default value which is determined from the firmware and possibly other parameters.

## Exit status

On success, 0 is returned, a non-zero failure code otherwise.

## See Also

systemd 1, hostname 1, hostname 5, machine-info 5, systemctl 1, systemd-hostnamed.service 8