CentOS how to change hostname?

Posted by Ivan

/ November 21, 2007 / 37 Comments

CentOS is an Enterprise Linux distribution based on the freely available sources from Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Each CentOS version is supported for 7 years (by means of security updates). A new CentOS version is released every 2 years and each CentOS version is periodically updated (roughly every 6 months) to support newer hardware. This results in a secure, low-maintenance, reliable, predictable and reproducible Linux environment.

I personally prefer to install CentOS as my linux distribution. Today I needed to change the hostname of my virtual guest machine running CentOS.

How to change hostname of a CentOS system?

There are several ways to do that but I am using the old way. VI is my friend and still working. I am using a remote SSH session to one of my virtual machines but you can perform same steps from the console.

Login with putty.exe
Goto /etc/sysconfig/
Type vi network
Press i on the keyboard and change the HOSTNAME to your preferred servername
Press ESC on the keybord
Save the configuration by :wq!
Log off or reboot

That’s all!

CentOS how to install VMWare tools?

September 11, 2008
Umarzuki

# system-config-network

and change hostname under DNS tab, logout then login again would do also.
February 4, 2009
tijn

You don’t need to reboot, just logout and login.
March 26, 2009
TheBigK

echo “newhostname” > /proc/sys/kernel/hostname and you dont need to reboot. Reboot is just for new kernel ;D
June 11, 2009
Pierluigi Vernetto

I have changed hostname, on a CentOS 5.3 on VMWare player, but after the change the startup becomes extremely slow, even opening Terminal takes 30s…. I have made sure the entry in the DNS tab in system-config-network is correct, and restarted…. if I restore the previous hostname value (bagvapp) the respose times become normal again…
anybody experiencing the same problem?
June 11, 2009
Pierluigi Vernetto

ah ok I forgot to add the new hostname in the 127.0.0.1 entry in the hosts file…
the procedure is described here:
http://javamonamour.blogspot.com/2009/06/centos-change-hostname-and-ips.html
December 3, 2009
nick

/etc/init.d/network restart will do after change the hostname. 🙂
December 21, 2009
Bob

And you can also type as root in console: “setup” and then go to “Network Configuration” and edit the DNS config.

And you may want to check your /etc/hosts
February 17, 2010
claudio

Thanks guys, but the TheBigK’s solution don’t persist before restart.
The Umarzuki and Bob solutions are OK.
Muchas gracias, Thank to all.
Sorry for my bad english.
February 17, 2010
claudio

don’t persist “after” restart… is the correct form…
Sorry again.
Good luck.
June 12, 2010
tommy

no need to restart :
hostname -v yourhostname
July 20, 2010
HostName To IP Web Service

This is a nice guide.

Most control panels have GUI to do this for novice users.
July 22, 2010
michael

edit /etc/sysconfig/network then do service network restart.
September 2, 2010
Abaid

Thanks MAN its works!!!
October 30, 2010
kaintze

I’m running CentOS under a VPS and writing to /proc/sys/kernel/hostname is not allowed (not even as root).

I followed the link in Pierluigi’s post and ended up adding this line in /etc/sysconfig/network

HOSTNAME=”plain.domainname.com”

This worked for me and the setting persisted after reboot. Full article here:
http://www.ducea.com/2006/08/07/how-to-change-the-hostname-of-a-linux-system/

Cheers!
January 21, 2011
helpdeskdan

kaintze’s instructions are good, but don’t forget to change /etc/hosts!
March 3, 2011
new

thank u.
it work!.
April 1, 2011
Hosting en Colombia

Setting a new VPS server and it worked like a charm

Thanks
May 26, 2011
RapidSpeeds

I needed this for a customer, thank you very much.
December 27, 2011
Christian

Thank you, it works!
January 11, 2012
Adrian

I to get slow boot times after doing a “hostname example.com” I do not recommend “trying” commands to see if they “worked” or not. These are sensitive settings that have a great impact on performance.
January 18, 2012
TGWALT

If you don’t “try” commands, how will you ever accomplish what you’re trying to fix/change? Apparently you also don’t pratice what you preach since you “tried” it as well and I’m sure have “tried” other commands before too……silly rabbit, *nix aren’t for kids
February 13, 2012
MOMO

ADRIAN, I do not believe your issue is the hostname change. you might other issue going on.
changing the hostname should not have any effect on performance….
February 14, 2012
some dude

worked fine, thanks a lot!
March 1, 2012
Supraveghere Video

michael solution is the best and easy to do. After you can check /etc/hosts to see if the new hostname is there or not. If it’s not, just modify the hostname file with the new hostname. That’s it, no need for reboot.
March 2, 2012
haji

thank you .
June 20, 2012
kdude63

Why not use nano? :3
July 18, 2012
varun kumar

I have a centos6.0 system, suddenly it hanged and when did reboot and log in with user root then i get no any data on my desktop of root, When i open Terminial then i get
-bash-4.1#
how can i recover all data and change terminal shell
-bash-4.1 # to [root@dhcppc13 ~]#

please help me
July 21, 2012
yea

nano > vi
August 14, 2012
lucas branco

perftect !!! thank you!!!
March 24, 2013
Juno David

All you have to do is give the following command accompanied with the new hostname…

hostname -v server.example.com
February 11, 2014
ac

My CentOS came up initially with a wrong name that it pulled from DNS that originally had the IP that it picked up via DHCP. I changed this name in hosts, network, dns, but still it shows the old name at root@wrongname.
July 12, 2014
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