Hostname Service?
On CentOS 7, I find in /var/log/messages several times daily messages
“localhost systemd: Started Hostname Service.”. However I can’t seem to find such a service using the systemctl command. What is the “Hostname Service”, what does it do and why is it being restarted frequently? Many thanks….Nick
3 thoughts on - Hostname Service?
Hi Nick,
The service you are referring to is hostnamed [1]. hostnamed is designed to start on request and terminate after an idle period. Programs on your computer are probably querying the service to determine if your hostname has changed.
This is normal behavior.
Brandon Vincent
[1] http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/hostnamed/
I see that I couldn’t previously find it with systemctl because it is a
“static” service, neither enabled nor disabled. What is “static” really intended to mean here? The other static services seem to be boot-time related for the most part, eg anaconda, pvscan….
Man for hostnamectl (also new to me) indicates some potential uses for the hostnamed-maintained names, yet I see nothing obvious making use of that info. Can you give me an example?
Thanks for the clues…..Nick Geovanis
A “static” service is basically one that can’t be disabled. It is statically enabled by being referenced in a systemd target.
freedesktop.org has some examples of when and why the different hostnames would be used and how they’re generated when the user doesn’t provide more than the traditional static hostname [1].
Brandon Vincent
[1] http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/hostnamed/