need info on hostname

[Charles Swiger]

On Nov 20, 2003, at 5:34 PM, fbsd_user wrote:
> Thanks for your reply, but you missed the meaning of my question. I
> am not interested in how hostname is used on the public internet and
> DNS stuff, I know that stuff. I want to know what the FBSD operating
> system does with it.

Nothing, particularly.

The FreeBSD operating system doesn't care what hostname you set, or 
even whether you set one at all: you could use localhost to refer to 
the current machine (via the 127.0.0.1 loopback interface) if the 
hostname was not explicitly set.

> More explicatively during the install of FBSD
> when asked to fill in the hostname prompt, what informative
> information should be given to the user so they can enter the
> correct stuff.  Reading the /etc/hosts file provides no useful info.
> Is there any place in FBSD that explains how to fill in the install
> hostname prompt during the install?

If you're configuring a standalone machine, the hostname doesn't matter.

If one is configuring a machine to run on a network, one asks your 
local network admin, or ISP, or whoever is responsible for that network 
to provide you with the "network configuration" information.  Often, 
simply using DHCP (run "dhclient" from the command line) to configure 
the machine will set all of this for you.

-- 
-Chuck