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Billy Moon
Asked: 2014-04-14 05:58:54 +0800 CST

Google Compute Engine Cent OS change hostname

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Title says it all really - I want to change the hostname of a Google Compute Engine Cent OS instance.

I have tried the normal method...

  • in /etc/sysconfig/network set HOSTNAME=my.new.hostname
  • in /etc/hosts set 127.0.1.1 my.new.hostname
  • reboot

I have tried setting a hostname key/value pair in the Custom metadata of the Compute Engine VM Instance admin page.

Nothing sticks. Seems to use the instance name as hostname.

centos

4 Answers

  1. By default there is a start up script which sets the hostname according to the metadata of that instance.
    See: https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/compute-image-packages/tree/master/google-startup-scripts

    Sets the hostname from the metadata server via DHCP exit hooks.
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  2. Have you tried hostname(1) ?

    Hostname is the program that is used to either set or display the current host, domain or node name of the system. These names are used by many of the networking programs to identify the machine. 

    hostname
xyzzy.example.com

hostname plugh.example.com

hostname
plugh.example.com
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  3. Change hostname in Google Compute Engine (Cent OS)

    Step 1

    # nano /etc/sysconfig/network
NETWORKING=yes
HOSTNAME=my.new.hostname

    Step 2: Create crontab auto set Hostname

    # crontab -e
@reboot hostname="my.new.hostname"; sed -i "s/.*Google.*//" /etc/hosts; hostname "$hostname"

    Step 3

    # reboot

    Step 4: Add below

    # nano /etc/hosts
127.0.0.1    my.new.hostname
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  4. For those who want to have a permanent hostname (for CentOS 6 & 7):

    # cd /etc/dhcp/dhclient-exit-hooks.d/
# ls
azure-cloud.sh
# touch update-hostname.sh
# nano update-hostname.sh # or you can use vi
# cat update-hostname.sh 
hostname my.fqdndomain.com
# chmod a+x update-hostname.sh
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