> Why does a system that doesn't have any way to communicate > with any other machine even need a hostname? > It does not, but looks cool when you shell in.. Other than for email, or I guess for networking, I see no reason for it either. Mine was fine at localhost.localdomain until CBL blacklisted me because of localhost.localdomain as part of the headers. Forced a change. But it is always good to know how to do this stuff.