uts_namespaces(7)

💖 uts_namespaces(7) 💖

Miscellaneous Information Manual · bestie welcome to the UTS namespace corner of the manual, section 7 🎀

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✨ NAME ✨

uts_namespaces — the whole entire overview of Linux UTS namespaces, no cap 🌸

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

okay so. UTS namespaces are the vibe-check isolation layer for two system identifiers: the hostname and the NIS domain name. that's it. those two. iconic little duo 💅

• the hostname gets set with sethostname(2)
• the domain name gets set with setdomainname(2)
• and you can read them back with uname(2), gethostname(2), and getdomainname(2)

here's the tea 🍓: changes you make to these identifiers are visible to all other processes in the same UTS namespace, but they are NOT visible to processes in other UTS namespaces. it's giving "what happens in this namespace stays in this namespace." periodt.

When a process creates a new UTS namespace using clone(2) or unshare(2) with the CLONE_NEWUTS flag, the hostname and domain name of the new UTS namespace are copied from the corresponding values in the caller's UTS namespace. so your new namespace literally inherits its parent's whole identity. main character energy, inherited 💜

⚠️ heads up bestie: use of UTS namespaces requires a kernel that is configured with the CONFIG_UTS_NS option. no config, no namespace. fr fr.

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👑 SEE ALSO 👑

• nsenter(1)
• unshare(1)
• clone(2)
• getdomainname(2)
• gethostname(2)
• setns(2)
• uname(2)
• unshare(2)
• namespaces(7)

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and that's the whole page, bestie — go forth and isolate your hostnames responsibly 🧚✨

💖 Linux man-pages 6.20 · 2026-02-08 💖