How to Quickly Change the Hostname on a CentOS VM
This guide walks you through the step‑by‑step process of changing a CentOS virtual machine's hostname by editing /etc/hostname and /etc/hosts, verifying the changes, and rebooting to apply them, complete with screenshots for each stage.
By default a CentOS virtual machine uses localhost or localhost.localdomain as its hostname.
The hostname is stored in the /etc/hostname file. Open it with vi /etc/hostname and replace the existing name with the desired one (e.g., slave2), then save and exit using :wq!.
After editing, verify the new hostname with cat /etc/hostname:
Alternatively, you can modify /etc/hosts to map the VM’s IP address to the new hostname. Edit the file with vi /etc/hosts and add a line containing the IP (e.g., 202.118.86.90) followed by the new hostname:
Confirm the hosts file update with cat /etc/hosts:
To apply the changes, reboot the VM using shutdown -r now:
After the reboot, the hostname will reflect the new name (e.g., slave2):
For consistency and to avoid future confusion, it is recommended to update both /etc/hostname and /etc/hosts with the new hostname.
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