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User profile for user: Johnathan
Johnathan Author
User level: Level 1
5 points

Setting a proper domain name and adding hosts for quick name resolution

I have 3 other computers in my house.

Two run linux at this time.

I want to do 2 things. Right now my machine says Steve.local for its hostname right? I want to change that so it reads Steve.mydomain.net.

Am I correct that I need to

sudo /etc/hostconfig
And change the hostname line from -Automatic- to =
HOSTNAME=Steve.mydomain.net

And for quicker resolution of the small number of hosts on my network (primarily so I can use hostname instead of IP for ssh) can I add static hosts to the /etc/hosts file on my machine ala:

sudo /etc/hosts

Is this the proper way to do these things in Mac OS X?

Also to change my workgroup for Samba:

Open the Directory Access utility (under Applications -> Utilities)
I highlight SMB and click configure and just change the Workgroup entry there. Is that correct as well?

Just checking before I go tooling up my machine tonight for better integration into my home network.

Macbook Pro 17", Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Posted on Jun 14, 2006 8:07 AM

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User profile for user: baltwo
baltwo
User level: Level 9
62,362 points

Posted on Jun 14, 2006 12:10 PM

Right now my machine says Steve.local for its hostname right? I want to change that so it reads Steve.mydomain.net.

IIRC, System Preferences->Sharing->Edit computer name is the appropriate place.

Can't help with the other items.
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User profile for user: Johnathan
Johnathan Author
User level: Level 1
5 points

Jun 14, 2006 4:12 PM in response to baltwo

Ok update changing the hostname in the field does NOT allow me to edit the .local part. In fact it converts Steve.mydomain.net.local to Steve-mydomain-net.local.

But I got my windows workgroup changed and I am showing up with the correct workgroup name from my other servers.

Also, lets say you only have a couple of computers on your home network right? So dedicated dns is kind of overkill especially when most of them are laptops rebooting all the time.

Well, your mac os x box has a hosts file. /etc/hosts as in if you want to edit sudo vi /etc/hosts. So you keep the computers pretty much in sync from those files.

I was afraid the information would not be persistent across a reboot. It was.

So, two out of three ain't bad. I read in the server forum its a pain in the ***. I was almost thinking of doing the hostconfig trick but I saw an Apple bulletin saying do NOT do that.
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User profile for user: Johnathan
Johnathan Author
User level: Level 1
5 points

Jun 15, 2006 6:44 AM in response to baltwo

Yeah deal is that I am not sure with the warnings on the apple support docs that its a good idea for a home user like myself (even though I know my *Nixes pretty well) to go messing with the hostconfig file.

According to the server support docs, the hostconfig file is the place to set the fully qualified domain name but there is a document in the server from Apple itself that says do NOT change that field.

There is an order Mac OS X uses to find its hostname. I cannot find the particular thread that detailed this but unless I set my DHCP to issue the fully qualified domain name or set up my own DNS server the only other way for me to make the box have a proper fully qualified domain name that matches the rest of the boxes in the house is to mess with a core system file.

Maybe after a while it will annoy me long enough to try that.
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Setting a proper domain name and adding hosts for quick name resolution

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