Can someone with far more knowledge than me help here?
I have a co-worker with a question; " Where should i set the server's hostname? There seems to be multiple places and i don't understand the differences. 1. # hostname mailserver.mydomain.com 2. # echo "127.0.0.1 mailserver mailserver.mydomain.com">>/etc/hosts 3. # vi /etc/sysconfig/network, add "HOSTNAME=mailserver.mydomain.com"
So far i think i understand that postfix likes to see the hostname in the hosts file, but things i have read imply that postfix is pretty clever at working it out from multiple places. Apache also seems to be clever, but the conf file recommends that you hard code the server name into the config. If you don't, where does apache look? If you set the hostname during an install, where is that written? If i use method 1 above ("hostname mailserver.mydomain.com") i seem to have to do that at every boot (or script it of course) whereas the edit to /etc/hosts or /etc/sysconfig/network would survive restarts.
I have read the information in "man hostname" and understand that "hostname -f" gets its info from the hosts file, but where does the function "gethostname" get its info from?
Finally - which method do you all use to set you hostname? "
Thanks all,
MrKiwi