Change hostname etc.?

Alan Dayley alandd at consultpros.com
Thu Jul 20 11:10:53 MST 2006


I am up against the wall on Changing computer hostname and all associated
files.  Is there documentation somewhere on how to do a complete job of
it?

Planned Scenario:

1 - Buy 4 identical computers: 4 shuttle bare bones systems, 4 Celeron
D's, 4 RAM modules, 4 hard drives.
2 - Install Windows 98 (don't go there, I didn't want to) and OpenSUSE
10.1 on one complete system.
3 - During SUSE install, define hostname to be 'testa'.
4 - Configure for login authentication from Windows domain.
5 - Configure desired software, tools, etc.
6 - Use 'dd' to copy completed drive to each of the 3 other drives.
7 - Power up each of the three other systems, in turn, changing their
hostname from 'testa' to 'testb' 'testc' and 'testd'.
8 - 4 computers now ready to go!

The Problem:

Got through all steps to 6 just fine.  At step 7 I used YaST to change the
hostname on the second computer.  Changed from 'testa' to 'testb'. 
Rebooted.  Login for normal user will not work.  So, logging into the
console as root, I take a look around.

The command 'grep -ir testa /etc/*' gives back several files that still
use the testa hostname: hosts.YaST2save, samba/secrets.tdb,
ssh/ssh_host_key, ssh/ssh_host_dsa_key.pub, ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key.pub.

So, using the same grep with 'testb', I find all the files and change them
back to 'testa'.  Reboot and login now works.

The Questions:

1. How do I change the hostname and all it's associated files?  It seems
that YaST does not do a complete job.

2. Ignoring all the files for a minute, there will be a change in the MAC
on each network interface for the computers.  Does this MAC address figure
into the various keys, etc.?  If so, how do I update these too?

The Goal:

I want to avoid a complete re-install of SUSE on each individual computer.
 Maybe there is a different way to do what I want but I naively thought
this would work.  Is there a better way to accomplish this?

Alan




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