How To Change Hostname on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

In this tutorial, we will show you how to change the hostname on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, Hostname is a label used to identify the machine and will help you to easily distinguish the server from another one. The hostname should be a Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) and should point to the server IP address so you can access the server by using it.

This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. If you are ready open up your terminal and follow through with this tutorial, and in less than 10 minutes you will have changed your hostname on a Ubuntu 20.04 LTS server.

Prerequisites

• A server running one of the following operating systems: Ubuntu 20.04, 18.04, and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint or elementary OS.
• It’s recommended that you use a fresh OS install to prevent any potential issues.
• SSH access to the server (or just open Terminal if you’re on a desktop).
• A non-root sudo user or access to the root user. We recommend acting as a non-root sudo user, however, as you can harm your system if you’re not careful when acting as the root.

Change Hostname on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Focal Fossa

Step 1. First I will check the current hostname by running “hostnamectl status” on the shell of your server:

hostnamectl

The output on my system is:

   Static hostname: chedelics
         Icon name: ubuntu-laptop
           Chassis: laptop
        Machine ID: 2381ec6bc9meilana1c843f3mariaea2
           Boot ID: 29intan594944feramona0759229ef0
  Operating System: Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal Fossa)
            Kernel: Linux 5.40.0-43-generic
      Architecture: x86-64

Step 2. Change Hostname on Ubuntu 20.04.

To change the system hostname is a simple process. The syntax is as follows:

[root@idroot ~]# sudo hostnamectl set-hostname host.example.com

For example, to change the system static hostname to meilana.idroot.us, you would use the following command:

[root@idroot ~]# sudo hostnamectl set-hostname meilana.idroot.us

Recheck the hostname (Close the session and open a new session using the console):

[root@idroot ~]# hostnamectl status

Output:

   Static hostname: meilana.idroot.us
         Icon name: ubuntu-laptop
           Chassis: laptop
        Machine ID: 2381ec6bc9meilana1c843f3mariaea2
           Boot ID: 29intan594944feramona0759229ef0
  Operating System: Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal Fossa)
            Kernel: Linux 5.40.0-43-generic
      Architecture: x86-64

In each of these configurations, you’ll need to be sure your hostname conforms to the standards for FQDNs (Fully Qualified Domain Names). The ASCII letters a – z, the digits 0 – 9, and the hyphen (‘-‘) are the only characters acceptable (the first character, however, cannot be a hyphen). You may also find it necessary (or useful) to include the domain name as well, in which case you would then also use periods (dots) to separate the hostname and the domain name (and top-level domain).

For more command options you can add the --help flag at the end.

# hostnamectl --help
hostnamectl [OPTIONS...] COMMAND ...

Query or change system hostname.

  -h --help              Show this help
     --version           Show package version
     --no-ask-password   Do not prompt for password
  -H --host=[USER@]HOST  Operate on remote host
  -M --machine=CONTAINER Operate on local container
     --transient         Only set transient hostname
     --static            Only set static hostname
     --pretty            Only set pretty hostname

Commands:
  status                 Show current hostname settings
  set-hostname NAME      Set system hostname
  set-icon-name NAME     Set icon name for host
  set-chassis NAME       Set chassis type for host
  set-deployment NAME    Set deployment environment for host
  set-location NAME      Set location for host

Congratulations! You have successfully changed your hostname. Thanks for using this tutorial on how to change and set the hostname on your Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Focal Fossa system. For additional help or useful information, we recommend you to check the official Ubuntu website.