How to Change Your Hostname in Ubuntu 16.04

Times are changing, and quite possibly, your hostname is as well if you are reading this article.  You may have come across a scenario within the business that requires you to change your hostname.  You might ask yourself why you would need to change your hostname? The most common scenarios would be due to a domain name change, your business has changed its course, or because you have thought of something better.

Sometimes you might forget to renew the domain names before they expire. Unfortunately, this can be a time when a domain broker purchases the domain name out from under you.  These are agencies that take popular sites and purchase with the intent of holding the domain until their inflated price is met.  As unfortunate as this may be, sometimes it is best to purchase a new domain name for cost efficiency.

Benefits to using a Fully Qualified Domain Name for your Hostname

It is good practice to use your FQDN “Fully Qualified Domain Name” as your hostname. Following this practice creates more options for securing your hostname with an SSL.  This will allow services like email to function using a secured connection. Using a hostname with a registered domain will allow you to add a corresponding DNS entry.  This will prevent unpredictable behavior by some services that use the hostname. This would allow you to set up a reverse lookup DNS entry. It can be very important especially with services like email verification.  For example, when an email is sent the receiving server runs a reverse lookup on the sender’s hostname. The reverse lookup allows the receiver’s server to ensure the hostname resolves to the matching IP address. This is just one preventive measure servers now used to reduce email spoofing incidents.

By using a unique domain name, you can reduce editing time. You may have a script that calls to the servers IP, instead of the hostname, to correctly function.  The best practice is to use the hostname because future migrations may change IP addresses/ranges.  Using the hostname can save you a lot of time eventually, depending on your infrastructure and coding.

Using SSH for Windows 10, 7/8, and Mac OS X

We’ll need to connect to your VPS server.  For this article, we will be using SSH “Secure Shell” to access the server and issue commands.  SSH is a powerful tool that will allow us to establish a secure connection with your server, diagnose, and issue remote commands.  For more information on the SSH protocol, you can visit the following link for our New User SSH Tutorial.

There are a few ways to use SSH depending on your operating system. We’ve have included some examples below followed by links with more information.

Windows 10

Using SSH client in Windows 10

Windows 7/8

Unfortunately, for older versions of Windows, it is not exactly possible to set up an SSH natively to connect to your server.  Thankfully, applications were created to assist. We like to use MobaXterm, but Putty is a safe choice as well. Both of these applications are free to use and simple to set up. We’ve included links below with more information on these applications.

Mac OS X

Newer Mac operating systems come with an excellent utility to access SSH called Terminal. To access Terminal navigate to your Applications folder >> Utilities folder >> Terminal.

In case the Terminal is inefficient for your preference, there are other options available in the App Store or through a quick search on Google. Putty is also available on Mac!

Changing the Hostname in Ubuntu 16.04

At this point, you should be able to access your server using SSH.  Once you have accessed your server, you will want to either switch to the root user or run these commands using sudo.  The files you will be accessing are owned by root. Because of this, you will need root privileges.

To start things off, we will want to edit /etc/hostname and the /etc/hosts files.  You can do so by using a text editor of your choice. We will demonstrate how to accomplish this task using the text editor called VIM.  Some of these command-line text editors can seem complicated, we will include the “sed” command to make things even easier.

Switching to root user:

# su – root  

Editing the hostname and hosts file:

# vim /etc/hostname  

# vim /etc/hosts  

Once you have opened these files, you will need to change your hostname as follows:

1. Press the i key to insert.  This will allow you to edit.  You will notice the editor says “Insert” at the bottom of the page.
2. Use the arrow keys to navigate the cursor to your old hostname.
3. Backspace to delete single characters
4. Replace with the new hostname.  Be sure the syntax is correct.
5. When done editing hit the ESC key to exit insert mode.
6. Then hold shift and press the : key
7. Finally, type wq and press enter key. This will write to the file and quit the editor
8. Repeat for /etc/hostname                                                            

As we mentioned earlier, the command line text editors can appear to be overly complicated, especially when you’re used to programs like Word and the Window’s text editor.  Because of this, we have included the command below.

# sed -i 's/host.example.com/host.newhostname.com/g' /etc/hosts


# sed -i 's/host.example.com/host.newhostname.com/g' /etc/hostname

After editing these files, you’ll need to reboot the server. If you wish to reboot at a later time but still want your new hostname to take immediate effect click on this sentence to skip ahead. Otherwise, you can do so by running

# reboot

Your SSH session should be terminated.  Depending on your server it can take a few minutes to boot back up.  Once the server is back online you can check your changes by running the following command:

# hostname  

If all went well, the terminal should output your new hostname.

If you wish to reboot at a later time but still want your new hostname to take immediate effect, you can use the hostname command to temporarily set the hostname until the next reboot.  From there, the changes in /etc/hosts and /etc/hostname will take permanent effect.

# hostname host.newhostname.com

There is also an alternative available.  The hostnamectl command is the default for both Desktop and Server versions. They combine setting the hostname via the hostname  command, editing  /etc/hostname and setting the static hostname. Unfortunately, editing /etc/hosts  still has to be done separately.

Example:

# hostnamectl set-hostname host.newhostname.com

Common Issue after Hostname Update

The “Failed to start hostname.service: Unit hostname.service is masked” error can happen when there is a syntax error within the /etc/hostname, or /etc/hosts file, or when the hostname does not match between these two files.  Be sure to check both of these files for mistakes and correct them as needed. In newer versions of Ubuntu, you will also want to use the hostnamectl command mentioned earlier.  

# hostnamectl set-hostname host.newhostname.com

Once corrected, be sure to start the hostname service to see if the issue has been corrected. You can do so by running the command that we have included below. Afterward, we would recommend rebooting your server.  This is not always necessary, but in some cases, it is required.

# systemctl restart hostname  

As always, Liquid Web customers enjoy 24/7 technical support with changing your hostname. Reach out to our sales team to see how you can get into our lightning-fast servers today!