[CentOS] Short or long hostname ?

[Valeri Galtsev]

On 4/10/19 8:23 AM, Simon Matter via CentOS wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> For the last ten years or so, I've defined the short hostname in
>> /etc/hostname and the FQDN in /etc/hosts. Now I wanted to double-check
>> this information, which eventually led me to this page:
>>
>>    *
>> https://serverfault.com/questions/331936/setting-the-hostname-fqdn-or-short-name
>>
>> Now I admit I'm even more confused than before.
>>
>> Is there some reliable piece of information on this subject for CentOS ?
> 
> IMHO for those having proper DNS in place, the hostname should be set to
> the FQDN in whatever place it is supposed to be set. I quite feel there is
> something wrong if the only place where the FQDN is listed is the
> /etc/hosts file.
> 
> I'm not very happy with how the issue was handled in Linux and the
> different distributions in the last decades. Not to mention the
> inconsistency in the relevant man pages.

Well, I am unhappy for about as long about /etc/hosts and how name 
resolution "should" happen which it doesn't, namely, if 
/etc/nsswitch.conf says

hosts: files dns

then ideally /etc/hosts should be used first, then nameservers. However 
(and this is true both for Linux and FreeBSD), some commands never look 
into /etc/hosts (e.g., command host), whereas some do use /etc/hosts 
(e.g., command ping).

Valeri

> 
> I found the info mentioned in the FreeBSD man pages quite helpful even if
> it has to be "translated" to Linux. See the excerpt of the mentioned man
> pages below. If you believe this is heresy to be posted here, please don't
> read it :-)
> 
> Regards,
> Simon
> 
> ----%>-------------------------------
> root at freebsd:~ # man hostname
> HOSTNAME(1)             FreeBSD General Commands Manual
> HOSTNAME(1)
> 
> NAME
>       hostname - set or print name of current host system
> 
> SYNOPSIS
>       hostname [-f] [-s | -d] [name-of-host]
> 
> DESCRIPTION
>       The hostname utility prints the name of the current host.  The
> super-user
>       can set the hostname by supplying an argument; this is usually done in
>       the initialization script /etc/rc.d/hostname, normally run at boot time.
>       This script uses the hostname variable in /etc/rc.conf.
> ...
> 
> 
> root at freebsd:~ # man rc.conf
> RC.CONF(5)                FreeBSD File Formats Manual
> RC.CONF(5)
> 
> NAME
>       rc.conf - system configuration information
> 
> DESCRIPTION
>       The file rc.conf contains descriptive information about the local host
> ...
>       hostname (str) The fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of this host on
>                the network.  This should almost certainly be set to
>                something meaningful, even if there is no network connection.
>                If dhclient(8) is used to set the hostname via DHCP, this
>                variable should be set to an empty string.  Within a jail(8)
>                the hostname is generally already set and this variable may
>                absent.  If this value remains unset when the system is done
>                booting your console login will display the default hostname
>                of "Amnesiac".
> 
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> 

-- 
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Valeri Galtsev
Sr System Administrator
Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics
Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics
University of Chicago
Phone: 773-702-4247
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++