MYNAME(5)

💖 NAME 💖

Okay so bestie, this is MYNAME(5) — a File Formats Manual page. It’s all about myname — default hostname. That’s the NAME section: default hostname. No cap, it’s giving “tiny file, major boot-time energy” ✨

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

Here’s the tea 🫖: the myname file is read by rc(8) at system startup time. Like, system startup time, literally.

/etc/myname contains the symbolic name of the host machine. The file should contain a single line specifying the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the system (e.g. host.example.com). Single line, bestie — that’s the assignment 🎀

The name must be resolvable, either by matching a hostname specified in /etc/hosts (see hosts(5)) or through DNS (see resolv.conf(5)). It must resolve, no cap — otherwise the vibe check fails 💀

The hostname is set via the hostname(1) utility at boot time. See hostname(7) for a description of hostname resolution. That’s the whole chain, iykyk 🦋

Empty lines and lines beginning with # are ignored. So your little comment era is safe and valid 💅

🎀 FILES 🎀

• /etc/myname — Default hostname. She’s the file, your default hostname, periodt 💖

🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

• hostname(1)
• hostname.if(5)
• hosts(5)
• resolv.conf(5)
• hostname(7)
• rc(8)

That’s the squad, all present and accounted for. Go read them if you need the deeper lore 👑

🌸 HISTORY 🌸

Support for the file /etc/myname first appeared in 386BSD 0.1. Respect the ancestors, honestly — iconic since day one 🌈

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Later, bestie! This Debian flavor of MYNAME(5) is dated March 29, 2025. Mwah 💋🦋