[Freeipa-users] What should the --hostname option do?

[List dedicated to discussions about use, configuration and deployment of the IPA server.]

Hello,

the --hostname option to the installer currently modifies the hostname
of the machine. In some environments, namely in unprivileged
containers, that operation is not denied. In some cases, it is
possible to change the FQDN of the container from outside, for example
with docker run's -h option. However, in some environments, namely in
OpenShift, there is not such possibility.

I have found out that disabling the change by turning /bin/hostnamectl
and /usr/bin/domainname makes ipa-server-install pass while the server
gets configured with the hostname specified as the parameter to
--hostname option so it does not seem to be essential for the FQDN to
change. Of course, some operations might no longer work, like ssh to
the FreeIPA machine as sshd would need to be set with
GSSAPIStrictAcceptorCheck no.

I wonder if either change of the --hostname semantics, or some new
option would be useful, to specify the hostname to be used by the
FreeIPA software while not touching the configuration of the hostname
for the machine.

-- 
Jan Pazdziora
Senior Principal Software Engineer, Identity Management Engineering, Red Hat