[linux-help] Re: $HOSTNAME

["Adam M. Sennott" <kryste01@xxxxxxx>]

Jeff Vian wrote:
> The other file,
> /etc/hosts
>     stores name/address mappings so your pc does not have to do a DNS
> lookup for those hosts you choose to put in it.
>     This file MUST contain the ip address and name of the local host
> (whatever the hostname and domain is), and the default 127.0.0.1 for the
> localhost and localhost.localdomain. If it does not at least contain
> those, MANY things will not work, such as Xwindows.
>

Here is where my lack of professional networking experience cases me a bit
of confusion.

I don't know what my host name is....I know I am a part of the sd.cox.net
domain, but do I need to call my ISP to get my host name?

When I was using windows, I didn't need it because I just made up a NetBIOS
name which was whatever I wanted it to be.

I don't have a file /etc/hostname, and under /etc/hosts all I have is:
127.0.0.1            localhost.localdomain        localhost

I don't have any trouble running KDE, sending mail from KDE with KMail,
running other processes, etc, but when it comes to sending mail from the
command line with sendmail I constantly get MAILER-DAEMON letters to root
saying I can't send mail because "xxx.sd.cox.net" is not a legitimate fully
qualified domain name, where "xxx" is whatever name I chose for my host.

Maybe I need to call the ISP.

Adam S.


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