Setting up a hostname is one of the quintessential tasks when setting up a server. A hostname is a name that is assigned to a PC in a network and helps in uniquely identifying it.

There are various ways of setting up a hostname in CentOS/RHEL 8 and we are going to look at each in turn.

To display the system’s hostname, run the command.

$ hostname

Check RHEL 8 Hostname

Additionally, you can execute the hostnamectl command as shown:

$ hostnamectl

Check System Hostname

Setting a Hostname in RHEL 8

To configure a hostname, login and use the hostnamectl command as shown:

$ sudo hostnamectl set-hostname 

For example, to set the hostname to tecmint.rhel8 execute the command:

$ sudo hostnamectl set-hostname tecmint.rhel8

Set System Hostname

You can later verify if the new hostname has been applied to your system by running the hostname or hostnamectl commands.

$ hostname
$ hostnamectl

Confirm System Hostname

Next, add the record for the hostname in the /etc/hosts file.

127.0.0.1	tecmint.rhel8

This automatically adds an entry by default to the /etc/hostname file.

Save and exit the text editor.

Finally, restart the networking service for the changes to come into effect.

$ sudo systemctl restart NetworkManager

Alternatively, you can use nmtui command to set or change the hostname of your system as shown.

$ sudo nmtui

Set System Hostname

Enter your new hostname.

Add New Hostname

Finally, restart the systemd-hostnamed service to apply recent changes.

$ sudo systemctl restart systemd-hostnamed

And this concludes this guide on how to change or set a hostname on CentOS/RHEL 8. We hope you found this guide helpful.