HOSTNAMECTL(1) hostnamectl HOSTNAMECTL(1)
NAME
hostnamectl - Control the system hostname
SYNOPSIS
hostnamectl [OPTIONS...] {COMMAND}
DESCRIPTION
hostnamectl may be used to query and change the system hostname and related settings.
This tool distinguishes three different hostnames: the high-level "pretty" hostname which might include all
kinds of special characters (e.g. "Lennart's Laptop"), the static hostname which is used to initialize the
kernel hostname at boot (e.g. "lennarts-laptop"), and the transient hostname which is a default received from
network configuration. If a static hostname is set, and is valid (something other than localhost), then the
transient hostname is not used.
Note that the pretty hostname has little restrictions on the characters used, while the static and transient
hostnames are limited to the usually accepted characters of Internet domain names.
The static hostname is stored in /etc/hostname, see hostname(5) for more information. The pretty hostname,
chassis type, and icon name are stored in /etc/machine-info, see machine-info(5).
Use systemd-firstboot(1) to initialize the system host name for mounted (but not booted) system images.
OPTIONS
The following options are understood:
--no-ask-password
Do not query the user for authentication for privileged operations.
--static, --transient, --pretty
If status is used (or no explicit command is given) and one of those fields is given, hostnamectl will
print out just this selected hostname.
If used with set-hostname, only the selected hostname(s) will be updated. When more than one of those
options is used, all the specified hostnames will be updated.
-H, --host=
Execute the operation remotely. Specify a hostname, or a username and hostname separated by "@", to
connect to. The hostname may optionally be suffixed by a container name, separated by ":", which connects
directly to a specific container on the specified host. This will use SSH to talk to the remote machine
manager instance. Container names may be enumerated with machinectl -H HOST.
-M, --machine=
Execute operation on a local container. Specify a container name to connect to.
-h, --help
Print a short help text and exit.
--version
Print a short version string and exit.
The following commands are understood:
status
Show current system hostname and related information.
set-icon-name NAME
Set the system icon name to NAME. The icon name is used by some graphical applications to visualize this
host. The icon name should follow the Icon Naming Specification[1].
Pass an empty string to reset the icon name to the default value, which is determined from chassis type
(see below) and possibly other parameters.
set-chassis TYPE
Set the chassis type to TYPE. The chassis type is used by some graphical applications to visualize the
host or alter user interaction. Currently, the following chassis types are defined: "desktop", "laptop",
"server", "tablet", "handset", "watch", "embedded", as well as the special chassis types "vm" and
"container" for virtualized systems that lack an immediate physical chassis.
Pass an empty string to reset the chassis type to the default value which is determined from the firmware
and possibly other parameters.
set-deployment ENVIRONMENT
Set the deployment environment description. ENVIRONMENT must be a single word without any control
characters. One of the following is suggested: "development", "integration", "staging", "production".
Pass an empty string to reset to the default empty value.
set-location LOCATION
Set the location string for the system, if it is known. LOCATION should be a human-friendly, free-form
string describing the physical location of the system, if it is known and applicable. This may be as
generic as "Berlin, Germany" or as specific as "Left Rack, 2nd Shelf".
Pass an empty string to reset to the default empty value.
EXIT STATUS
On success, 0 is returned, a non-zero failure code otherwise.
SEE ALSO
systemd(1), hostname(1), hostname(5), machine-info(5), systemctl(1), systemd-hostnamed.service(8), systemd-
firstboot(1)
NOTES
1. Icon Naming Specification
http://standards.freedesktop.org/icon-naming-spec/icon-naming-spec-latest.html
systemd 219 HOSTNAMECTL(1)
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