Proper hostname

[bhm8hwcm]

I am not sure what the proper naming convention for the hostname should be.

I will be hosting 2 websites - www.web1.com, www.web2.com

My hostname right now is localhost.localdomain
Should I leave this or change it? If I want to call my computer 'server', is my hostname therefore just 'server', or should it be 'server.localdomain'... or should it be 'server.web1.com'?

If hosting more than 1 website should any of hosted site domains be included in any of the naming conventions?

As well, if my linux box has a hostname of 'server' then what should the entry in the /etc/hosts file be? I have seen different things posted.

127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost server
- or -
127.0.0.1 localhost.localcomain localhost
xxx.xxx.xx.xx server

Any clarification would be appreciated. I am having a difficult time trying to nail this down. I have tried different things and my server seems to work, my mainn problems are regarding mail and I think they may be tied to this.

[Seve]

Hello:
No expert, however I would think that if you server is named server then you should see in your host file
127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost server
or
127.0.0.1 server localhost.localdomain localhost
also you should have
xxx.xxx.xx.xx server
for dns resolution issues etc.

Seve

[vinbob]

In other words you can replace that line with something like this...

127.0.0.1 myserver myserver.web1.com myserver.web2.com

You can (or should) also have a similar line with the same host names but starting with your NIC's IP address.

[bhm8hwcm]

Do you not have to have the localhost.localdomain entry in there for 127.0.0.1?

I thought this was always needed, or is atleast safe.

[vinbob]

No you don't need localhost although you could stick localhost on the end if you wish, the format isn't very strict, you could therefore have the format shown in my earlier post, here's a /etc/hosts mock-up for you...

127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost #loopback IP address
10.10.10.1 myserver myserver.web1.com myserver.web2.com #local IP address
192.168.1.1 myserver myserver.anotherdomain #a second network card attached to a different network/domain
10.10.10.2 myotherserver myotherserver.web1.com #another machine on the local network
192.168.1.5 laptop #another machine on the 192 local network

[bhm8hwcm]

Thanks vinbob.

Is the 10.10.10.1 referring to the static ip I have been assigened from my ISP for the 2 hosted sites?

[Zotter]

There's a school of thought that says, in a similar situation, the machines could (should?) be named:
web1.com
web2.com
And those registered as their A names in DNS. Then C names added for the www and other services.

Remember, you want to name the machines, not their services. There are other mechanisms (C names, /etc/services) to name the services offered by those machines. Allows for greater flex later if you want to do other things.

/etc/hosts should have localhost.localdomain set to 127.0.0.1 - same as default - not for outside connectivity, but for functions within the system. The loopback connector is used more than one would think.

If the box's external IP is - say - 10.0.0.2 a quick and dirty method to deal with this is:
127.0.0.1 localhost localhost.localdomain
10.0.0.2 web1.com www.web1.com

Best yet, just leave /etc/hosts alone, at it's default setup and add the IPs, names C names and MX records for each box to your local DNS server. Special if you get more than about 5 boxes going - that's worth the trivial effort it takes to setup DHCP and DNS for your LAN.