Naming my computer on a LAN

[Damien Elmes]

"Gartside, Andrew" <Andrew.Gartside at dsto.defence.gov.au> writes:

> I'm using RedHat 7.1, purely in text mode (no GUI packages installed). I'm
> connected to a LAN, but have not configured proxy servers yet. Nevertheless,
> I can ping my machine using its IP address and can open shared files on the
> LAN. Nothing I do, however, seems sucessful in giving my machine a domain
> name.
> Assume I'm logged in as root:
> # hostname <newname> changes the name sucessfully. 
> # hostname now shows the new name.
> # exit logs root out
> Screen now shows: <newname> login:   it looks like the name was changed
> sucessfully, but I can't ping the name from another machine and the DNS
> machine doesn't acknowledge the existence of <newname> on the network.
> If I reboot, the machine forgets the changes and reverts to <localhost>,
> even though the actual LAN connection is still up and I can ping my own
> machine from a remote node using the actual IP address.

Edit /etc/hostname to change the host name persistantly.

Then head over to www.linuxdoc.org and look under "LDP" -> "Linux
Netword Administration Guide" (NAG). That will explain why a hostname
is different to a DNS name, and a lot more to boot.

Cheers!

-- 
Damien Elmes
resolve at repose.cx