NAME

       hostnamectl - Control the system hostname

SYNOPSIS

       hostnamectl [OPTIONS...] {COMMAND}

DESCRIPTION

       hostnamectl may be used to query and change the system hostname and related settings.

       systemd-hostnamed.service(8) and this tool distinguish three different hostnames: the
       high-level "pretty" hostname which might include all kinds of special characters (e.g.
       "Lennart's Laptop"), the "static" hostname which is the user-configured hostname (e.g.
       "lennarts-laptop"), and the transient hostname which is a fallback value received from
       network configuration (e.g. "node12345678"). If a static hostname is set to a valid value,
       then the transient hostname is not used.

       Note that the pretty hostname has little restrictions on the characters and length used,
       while the static and transient hostnames are limited to the usually accepted characters of
       Internet domain names, and 64 characters at maximum (the latter being a Linux limitation).

       Use systemd-firstboot(1) to initialize the system hostname for mounted (but not booted)
       system images.

COMMANDS

       The following commands are understood:

       status
           Show system hostname and related information. If no command is specified, this is the
           implied default.

       hostname [NAME]
           If no argument is given, print the system hostname. If an optional argument NAME is
           provided then the command changes the system hostname to NAME. By default, this will
           alter the pretty, the static, and the transient hostname alike; however, if one or
           more of --static, --transient, --pretty are used, only the selected hostnames are
           changed. If the pretty hostname is being set, and static or transient are being set as
           well, the specified hostname will be simplified in regards to the character set used
           before the latter are updated. This is done by removing special characters and spaces.
           This ensures that the pretty and the static hostname are always closely related while
           still following the validity rules of the specific name. This simplification of the
           hostname string is not done if only the transient and/or static hostnames are set, and
           the pretty hostname is left untouched.

           The static and transient hostnames must each be either a single DNS label (a string
           composed of 7-bit ASCII lower-case characters and no spaces or dots, limited to the
           format allowed for DNS domain name labels), or a sequence of such labels separated by
           single dots that forms a valid DNS FQDN. The hostname must be at most 64 characters,
           which is a Linux limitation (DNS allows longer names).

       icon-name [NAME]
           If no argument is given, print the icon name of the system. If an optional argument
           NAME is provided then the command changes the icon name to NAME. The icon name is used
           by some graphical applications to visualize this host. The icon name should follow the
           Icon Naming Specification[1].

       chassis [TYPE]
           If no argument is given, print the chassis type. If an optional argument TYPE is
           provided then the command changes the chassis type to TYPE. The chassis type is used
           by some graphical applications to visualize the host or alter user interaction.
           Currently, the following chassis types are defined: "desktop", "laptop",
           "convertible", "server", "tablet", "handset", "watch", "embedded", as well as the
           special chassis types "vm" and "container" for virtualized systems that lack an
           immediate physical chassis.

       deployment [ENVIRONMENT]
           If no argument is given, print the deployment environment. If an optional argument
           ENVIRONMENT is provided then the command changes the deployment environment to
           ENVIRONMENT. Argument ENVIRONMENT must be a single word without any control
           characters. One of the following is suggested: "development", "integration",
           "staging", "production".

       location [LOCATION]
           If no argument is given, print the location string for the system. If an optional
           argument LOCATION is provided then the command changes the location string for the
           system to LOCATION. Argument LOCATION should be a human-friendly, free-form string
           describing the physical location of the system, if it is known and applicable. This
           may be as generic as "Berlin, Germany" or as specific as "Left Rack, 2nd Shelf".

OPTIONS

       The following options are understood:

       --no-ask-password
           Do not query the user for authentication for privileged operations.

       --static, --transient, --pretty
           If status is invoked (or no explicit command is given) and one of these switches is
           specified, hostnamectl will print out just this selected hostname.

           If used with hostname, only the selected hostnames will be updated. When more than one
           of these switches are specified, all the specified hostnames will be updated.

       -H, --host=
           Execute the operation remotely. Specify a hostname, or a username and hostname
           separated by "@", to connect to. The hostname may optionally be suffixed by a port ssh
           is listening on, separated by ":", and then a container name, separated by "/", which
           connects directly to a specific container on the specified host. This will use SSH to
           talk to the remote machine manager instance. Container names may be enumerated with
           machinectl -H HOST. Put IPv6 addresses in brackets.

       -M, --machine=
           Execute operation on a local container. Specify a container name to connect to,
           optionally prefixed by a user name to connect as and a separating "@" character. If
           the special string ".host" is used in place of the container name, a connection to the
           local system is made (which is useful to connect to a specific user's user bus:
           "--user --machine=lennart@.host"). If the "@" syntax is not used, the connection is
           made as root user. If the "@" syntax is used either the left hand side or the right
           hand side may be omitted (but not both) in which case the local user name and ".host"
           are implied.

       -h, --help
           Print a short help text and exit.

       --version
           Print a short version string and exit.

       --json=MODE
           Shows output formatted as JSON. Expects one of "short" (for the shortest possible
           output without any redundant whitespace or line breaks), "pretty" (for a pretty
           version of the same, with indentation and line breaks) or "off" (to turn off JSON
           output, the default).

EXIT STATUS

       On success, 0 is returned, a non-zero failure code otherwise.

SEE ALSO

       systemd(1), hostname(1), hostname(5), machine-info(5), systemctl(1), systemd-
       hostnamed.service(8), systemd-firstboot(1)

NOTES

        1. Icon Naming Specification
           https://standards.freedesktop.org/icon-naming-spec/icon-naming-spec-latest.html