How do I change the hostname without a restart?

Question

I want change the OS hostname but I do not want to restart for that.

I have edited the file sudo gedit /etc/hostname but it requires a restart to get implemented. How to avoid this?

Answer 1

It's not too hard. Use the following command in a terminal:

sudo hostname your-new-name

This will set the hostname to your-new-name until you restart. After a restart your changes in /etc/hostname will be used.

See

man hostname

• How do I change the computer name?

for further information.

Answer 2

Changing the hostname or computer name in ubuntu without restart

Edit /etc/hostname and change to the new value,

nano /etc/hostname 

Edit /etc/hosts and change the old 127.0.1.1 line to your new hostname

127.0.0.1   localhost
127.0.1.1   ubuntu.local    ubuntu   # change to your new hostname/fqdn

Note : i have read it on a forum > Edit /etc/hosts and change the old 127.0.1.1 line to your new hostname (if you dont do this, you wont be able to use sudo anymore. If you hav e already done it, press ESC on the grub menu, choose recovery, and edit your host file to the correct settings)

Now after a reboot, your hostname will be the new one you chose

To change without a reboot, you can just use hostname.sh after you edit /etc/hostname. You must keep both your host names in /etc/hosts (127.0.0.1 newhost oldhost) until you execute the command below:

sudo /etc/init.d/hostname.sh start

Note : Above command to make the change active. The hostname saved in this file (/etc/hostname) will be preserved on system reboot (and will be set using the same script we used hostname.sh).

Answer 3

Use the hostname command to temporarily do this: