Provided by: systemd-services_204-5ubuntu20.31_amd64 
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.
This tool distinguishes three different host names: the high-level "pretty" hostname which might include
all kinds of special characters (e.g. "Lennart's Laptop"), the static hostname which is used to
initialize the kernel hostname at boot (e.g. "lennarts-laptop"), and the transient hostname which might
be assigned temporarily due to network configuration and might revert back to the static hostname if
network connectivity is lost and is only temporarily written to the kernel hostname (e.g. "dhcp-47-11").
Note that the pretty hostname has little restrictions on the characters used, while the static and
transient hostnames are limited to the usually accepted characters of internet domain names.
The static host name is stored in /etc/hostname, see hostname(5) for more information. The pretty host
name, chassis type and icon name are stored in /etc/machine-info, see machine-id(5).
OPTIONS
The following options are understood:
-h, --help
Prints a short help text and exits.
--version
Prints a short version string and exits.
--no-ask-password
Don't query the user for authentication for privileged operations.
-H, --host
Execute the operation remotely. Specify a hostname, or username and hostname separated by @, to
connect to. This will use SSH to talk to a remote system.
--static, --transient, --pretty
If set-hostname is invoked and one or more of these options are passed only the selected hostnames is
updated.
The following commands are understood:
status
Show current system hostname and related information.
set-hostname [NAME]
Set the system hostname. 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 host name will be simplified in regards to the character set used before the
latter are updated. This is done by replacing spaces by "-" and removing special characters. 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 host names are set, and the pretty host name is left untouched. Pass the
empty string "" as hostname to reset the selected hostnames to their default (usually "localhost").
set-icon-name [NAME]
Set the system icon name. The icon name is used by some graphical applications to visualize this
host. The icon name should follow the Icon Naming Specification[1]. Pass an empty string to this
operation to reset the icon name to the default value which is determined from chassis type (see
below) and possibly other parameters.
set-chassis [TYPE]
Set the chassis 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,
server, tablet, handset, as well as the special chassis types vm and container for virtualized
systems that lack an immediate physical chassis. Pass an empty string to this operation to reset the
chassis type to the default value which is determined from the firmware and possibly other
parameters.
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)
NOTES
1. Icon Naming Specification
http://standards.freedesktop.org/icon-naming-spec/icon-naming-spec-latest.html