[CentOS] Changing hostname?

[William L. Maltby]

On Sat, 2008-09-13 at 05:06 -0700, nate wrote:
> William L. Maltby wrote:
> 
> > HWADDR=xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx  # I've masked out MAC address for this post
> 
> Out of curiosity why ? You are aware that someone knowing
> your MAC address outside your local network is fairly
> useless right?

Yes. I just do it out of habit so I don't forget something which could
lead to exposure. Habit developed long ago.

> 
> I just find it funny how people tend to mask MAC/IP/host/domain
> names. If your system is not secure, and is on the internet,
> people on this list(and those scanning the archives etc) are
> the least of your worries.

Long, long ago, I had a block of IPs and registered domain. Worries
about hacking were relatively new then, I was even more ignorant about
this stuff than I am now, and my gateway/mail unit got hacked. I
immediately split services, hardened the gateway and, in a continual
process of "learning from my mistakes", decided that *always* masking
some site-specific information would help reduce the chance that I would
forget on some critical piece down the road. If nothing else, since I
don't mask *all* site-specific data, it causes me to briefly think.
Since "hoomons" are, indeed, creatures of habit, it is best to reinforce
good habits, even to the point of overkill IMO.

I would rather do unnecessary work and be safer than be lazy and maybe
get burned at the most inopportune time (seems to be the most common
time for *everything* bad to happen).

> <snip site information>

Since, as I've often stated, I'm really ignorant about a lot of stuff, I
feel no regrets about taking a little more conservative approach to this
sort of stuff.

> nate
> <snip>

-- 
Bill