man--hostnamectl
HOSTNAMECTL(1) hostnamectl HOSTNAMECTL(1)
NAME
hostnamectl - Control the system hostname
SYNOPSIS
hostnamectl [OPTIONS...] {COMMAND}
HOSTNAMECTL(1) hostnamectl HOSTNAMECTL(1)
NAME
hostnamectl - Control the system hostname
SYNOPSIS
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-
info(5).
Use systemd-firstboot(1) to initialize the system host name for mounted (but not booted)
system images.
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.
-H, --host=
Execute the operation remotely. Specify a hostname, or a username and hostname separated
by "@", to connect to. The hostname may optionally be suffixed by a container name,
separated by ":", which connects directly to a specific container on the specified host.
This will use SSH to talk to the remote machine manager instance. Container names may be
enumerated with machinectl -H HOST.
-M, --machine=
Execute operation on a local container. Specify a container name to connect to.
-h, --help
Print a short help text and exit.
--version
Print a short version string and exit.
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[1].
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", "embedded", 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.
set-deployment ENVIRONMENT
Set the deployment environment description. ENVIRONMENT must be a single word without any
control characters. One of the following is suggested: "development", "integration",
"staging", "production".
Pass an empty string to reset to the default empty value.
set-location LOCATION
Set the location string for the system, if it is known. LOCATION should be a
human-friendly, free-form string describing the physical location of the system, if it is
known and applicable. This may be as generic as "Berlin, Germany" or as specific as "Left
Rack, 2nd Shelf".
Pass an empty string to reset to the default empty value.
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), systemd-firstboot(1)
NOTES
1. Icon Naming Specification
http://standards.freedesktop.org/icon-naming-spec/icon-naming-spec-latest.html
systemd 219 HOSTNAMECTL(1)
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