hostname doesn't stick

[Anne Wilson]

On Sunday 17 September 2006 15:19, Tim wrote:
> On Sun, 2006-09-17 at 10:32 +0100, Anne Wilson wrote:
> > Adding the local hostname seems to be a Fedora thing, and I see no
> > good reason for it.
>
> Do you mean having a localhost name entry?  

No

> I have to wonder about that, 
> localhost = 127.0.0.1 on just about everything.  It could be presumed to
> be present, whether or not it actually is.
>
> Do you mean adding the local host's name to the localhost line?  I think
> this a bad idea, even if the machine is not connected to any other
> networkable device.  It might be the case now, but two weeks later when
> someone tries to SMB between two boxes, and wonders why Windows cannot
> browse "\\localhost\myfiles"...
>
This is what I was referring to.  I was surprised to find Fedora adding the 
local host name to the localhost line.  It caused me problem (I do run samba) 
that totally disappeared when I split the line, keeping the localhost line 
pure.

> Do you mean adding a line for the local host addresses to the hosts
> file?  If you have any service, including the X server, sendmail, etc.,
> that tries to start up using the machine's hostname, it has to be able
> to know what IP and name are associated with each other.
>
My personal preference is for static IP, and I do have a longish hosts file, 
listing all boxes on the lan.  Not necessary for many people, but I prefer to 
do it rather than wait to see what application might run into problems 
without it.  I forgot to do that on the rawhide laptop, and postfix.sendmail 
did have problems with local mail.  Fixing the hosts file cured it entirely.

Anne
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