Here’s a quick and painless way to change your server’s hostname in linux without having to reboot the server. This should work for most flavors of linux, although I have only tested it on CentOS and RedHat. So you may have to adjust things according to your server’s configuration.
Step 1: Edit your network file.
cd /etc/sysconfig vi network
Look for your current hostname to the right of HOSTNAME= and edit it to reflect your new hostname. When done, save the document.
Step 2: Edit the hosts file.
cd /etc vi hosts
Again, you will want to edit out your old hostname and replace it with the new hostname.
Step 3: Use hostname program to set hostname.
hostname your-new-host-name
Step 4: Restart network services
service network restart
You should be all set. You can test your hostname by typing:
hostname
This should return the current hostname. You can do a further test by logging out of your current session and re-logging in. Your command prompt should reflect the new hostname:
[toor@rack10]
