WORKAROUND Re: Cannot change hostname permanently

[Chris Lale <chrislale@untrammelled.co.uk>]

Liam O'Toole wrote:
> [...]
>   
> The output you quote above is the result of init invoking
>
>     /etc/init.d/hostname.sh start
>
> What happens when you do this manually? 
   # hostname desktop
   # hostname
   desktop

   # /etc/init.d/hostname.sh
   Setting hostname to 'earth'...done.


> Are there any weird permissions
> on the file /etc/hostname?
>
>   

# ls -l /etc/hostname
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 6 2006-06-14 16:26 /etc/hostname

It seems that the hostname command does not actually modify the 
/etc/hostname file, yet the hostname command does report the new name.

   # hostname desktop

   # cat /etc/hostname
   earth

   # hostname
   desktop

Perhaps hostname is reading from /proc rather than /etc/hostname?

A workaround is to change the hostname by editing /etc/hostname directly.

   # echo desktop > /etc/hostname

--
Chris.