This guide applies to:
When creating a new Vultr VPS, you can set the Server Hostname before deployment. If you skip this step or decide to rename your server later, you'll discover that changing the server hostname from the Customer Portal also performs a fresh reinstall of the entire server.
Follow this guide if you need to change the server hostname without reinstalling.
This guide uses olddog for the old hostname and newtricks for the new hostname.
Check the hostname with hostname
.
$ hostname
olddog
You can also use hostnamectl
.
$ hostnamectl
Static hostname: olddog
Icon name: computer-vm
Chassis: vm
Machine ID: 35ce0ea8e7e14d5da70beb7726f11df1
Boot ID: 5e03561d1ea54d20b9f39d686f64d4b7
Virtualization: qemu
Operating System: Debian GNU/Linux 9 (stretch)
Kernel: Linux 4.9.0-12-amd64
Architecture: x86-64
Change the hostname to newtricks.
$ sudo hostnamectl set-hostname newtricks
Use your favorite text editor to change any instances of your old hostname to the new hostname in /etc/hosts
. If you have a DNS name pointed to this instance, it's a best practice to also set that name here.
$ sudo nano /etc/hosts
From:
127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.1.1 guest.guest guest
To:
127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.1.1 newtricks.example.com newtricks
Reboot the server.
Test your change with hostnamectl
and hostname
.
$ hostnamectl
Static hostname: newtricks
Icon name: computer-vm
Chassis: vm
Machine ID: 35ce0ea8e7e14d5da70beb7726f11df1
Boot ID: 5e03561d1ea54d20b9f39d686f64d4b7
Virtualization: qemu
Operating System: Debian GNU/Linux 9 (stretch)
Kernel: Linux 4.9.0-12-amd64
Architecture: x86-64
$ hostname
newtricks
$ hostname -f
newtricks.example.com
Your server hostname is changed and ready to use. This procedure does not change your DNS name, and you'll need to perform those steps at your domain registrar.
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