Setting hostnames with hostnamectl on AWS AMIs, missing dbus?

[paul <paul@zot.org>]

Hi all,

Not sure if this is the right place to post issues with the AWS AMIs, please let me know if it should be elsewhere.

I ran into a problem with the official Debian AMIs missing 'dbus' - trying to set the hostname with 'hostnamectl', the command fails as below. A quick apt-get update and install of dbus lets hostnamectl behave as expected.

root@ip-10-200-10-94:~# hostnamectl
Failed to create bus connection: No such file or directory

I ran into this error as it blocked my Ansible setup (v2.2), as the standard hostname module sets names via hostnamectl. I've tested and confirmed this with a fresh install of ami-b14ba7a7 in us-east-1 (the Debian 8.7 image in us-east-1).

Is there a reason why dbus is not part of the AMIs? I must admit, I'm not very familiar with it myself.

Thanks,

Paul