Hostname Networking Utility
On the Windows system, hostname simply prints out the hostname of the machine you are using. If you open a command prompt and type hostname you will see it return the hostname.
On Unix, Linux, and Mac OS X systems, hostname is much more powerful. You could use it to change the hostname of the machine, however, that typically occurs elsewhere. If you type in hostname on a Unix-like system, it will also display the hostname of the machine you are using, but there are other options beneath the surface:
root@thatcommunity [/home]# hostname -?
Usage: hostname [-v] {hostname|-F file} set hostname (from file)
domainname [-v] {nisdomain|-F file} set NIS domainname (from file)
hostname [-v] [-d|-f|-s|-a|-i|-y|-n] display formatted name
hostname [-v] display hostname
hostname -V|--version|-h|--help print info and exit
dnsdomainname=hostname -d, {yp,nis,}domainname=hostname -y
-s, --short short host name
-a, --alias alias names
-i, --ip-address addresses for the hostname
-f, --fqdn, --long long host name (FQDN)
-d, --domain DNS domain name
-y, --yp, --nis NIS/YP domainname
-F, --file read hostname or NIS domainname from given file
This command can read or set the hostname or the NIS domainname. You can
also read the DNS domain or the FQDN (fully qualified domain name).
Unless you are using bind or NIS for host lookups you can change the
FQDN (Fully Qualified Domain Name) and the DNS domain name (which is
part of the FQDN) in the /etc/hosts file.
As you can see, you can set the hostname using this utility.
