Google Compute Engine: how to set hostname permanently? - google-compute-engine

Question

How do I set the hostname of an instance in GCE permanently? I can set it via hostname,but after reboot it is gone again.
I tried to feed in metadata (hostname:f.q.d.n), but that did not do the job. But it should work via metadata (https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/compute-image-packages/tree/master/google-startup-scripts).
Anybody an idea?

Answer 1

The most simple way to achieve it is creating a simple script and that's what I have done.
I have stored the hostname in the instance metadata and then I retrieve it every time the system restarts in order to set the hostname using a cron job.
$ gcloud compute instances add-metadata <instance> --metadata hostname=<new_hostname>
$ sudo crontab -e
And this is the line that must be appended in crontab
#reboot hostname $(curl --silent "http://metadata.google.internal/computeMetadata/v1/instance/attributes/hostname" -H "Metadata-Flavor: Google")
After these steps, every time you restart your instance it will have the hostname <new_hostname>.
You can check it in the prompt or with the command: hostname

Answer 2

You need to remove the file /etc/dhcp/dhclient.d/google_hostname.sh
rm -rf /etc/dhcp/dhclient.d/google_hostname.sh
rm -rf /etc/dhcp/dhclient-exit-hooks.d/google_set_hostname
It's worth noting that this script is needed in order to run gcloud beta compute instances create with the --hostname flag. If this script is absent on a base image, new VM instances will preserve the source hostname/FQDN!

Answer 3

Edit rc.local
sudo nano /etc/rc.local
Add your line under the rest:
hostname *your.hostname.com*
Make sure to run the following after for the script to be executed
chmod +x /etc/rc.d/rc.local
Reboot, and profit.

Answer 4

That isn't possible. Please take a look at this answer. The following article explains that the "hostname" is part of the default metadata entries and it is not possible to manually edit any of the default metadata pairs. As such, you would need to use a script or something else to change the hostname every time the system restarts, otherwise it will automatically get re-synced with the metadata server on every reboot.
You can find information on startup scripts for GCE in this article. You can visit this one for info on how to apply the script to an instance.

Answer 5

You can also create a simple startup-script to do the jobs:
$ gcloud compute instances add-metadata <instance-name> --zone <instance-zone> --metadata startup-script='#! /bin/bash
hostname <hostname>'
Notice that if you already have a startup-script you need to add to the existing startup-script below command or you will replace all the startup-script:
$ hostname instance-name

Answer 6

I was lucky to set hostname at GCE running CentOS.
Source: desantolo.com
Click EDIT on your instance
Go to "Custom metadata" section
Add hostname + your.hostname.tld (change "your.hostname.tld" to your actual hostname
run curl --silent "http://metadata.google.internal/computeMetadata/v1/instance/attributes/hostname" -H "Metadata-Flavor: Google"
run sudo env EDITOR=nano crontab -e to edit crontab
add line #reboot hostname $(curl --silent "http://metadata.google.internal/computeMetadata/v1/instance/attributes/hostname" -H "Metadata-Flavor: Google")
On your keyboard Ctrl + X
On your keyboard hit Y
On your keyboard hit Enter
run reboot
after system rebooted, run hostname and see if your changes applied
Good luck!

Answer 7

If anyone finds this solution does not work for them on GCS instance. Then I suggest you try using exit hooks as described by Google Support.
In fact, some distributions of Linux like CentOS and Debian use
dhclient-script script to configure the network parameters of the
machine. This script is invoked from time to time by dhclient which is
dynamic host configuration protocol client and provides a means for
configuring one or more network interfaces using the DHCP protocol,
BOOTP protocol, or if these protocols fail, by statically assigning an
address.
The following text is a quote from the man (manual) page of
dhclient-script:
After all processing has completed, /usr/sbin/dhclient-script
checks for the presence of an executable
/etc/dhcp/dhclient-exit-hooks script, which if present is invoked using the ´.´ command. The exit status of
dhclient-script will be passed to dhclient-exit-hooks in the exit_status shell variable, and will always be zero
if the script succeeded at the task for which it was invoked. The rest of the environment as described previ‐
ously for dhclient-enter-hooks is also present. The /etc/dhcp/dhclient-exit-hooks script can modify the valid of
exit_status to change the exit status of dhclient-script.
That being said, by taking a look into the code snippet of
dhclient-script, we can see the script checks for the existence of an
executable /etc/dhcp/dhclient-up-hooks script and all scripts in
/etc/dhcp/dhclient-exit-hooks.d/ directory.
ETCDIR="/etc/dhcp"
193 exit_with_hooks() {
194 exit_status="${1}"
195
196 if [ -x ${ETCDIR}/dhclient-exit-hooks ]; then
197 . ${ETCDIR}/dhclient-exit-hooks
198 fi
199
200 if [ -d ${ETCDIR}/dhclient-exit-hooks.d ]; then
201 for f in ${ETCDIR}/dhclient-exit-hooks.d/*.sh ; do
202 if [ -x ${f} ]; then
203 . ${f}204 fi
205 done
206 fi
207
208 exit ${exit_status}209 }
Therefore, in order to modify the hostname of your Linux VM you can
create a custom script with .sh extension and place it in
/etc/dhcp/dhclient-exit-hooks.d/ directory. If this directory does not
exist, you can create it. The content of the custom script will be:
hostname YourFQDN.sh
>
be sure to make this new .sh file executable:
chmod +x YourFQDN.sh
Source: (https://groups.google.com/d/msg/gce-discussion/olG_nXZ-Jaw/Y9HMl4mlBwAJ)

Answer 8

Im not sure I understand Adrián's answer. It seems overly complex since you have to run a script each boot why not just use hostname?
vi /etc/rc.local
add:
hostname your_hostname
thats it. tested and working. no need to fiddle with metadata and such.

Answer 9

Non-cron/metadata/script solution.
Edit /etc/dhclient-(network-interface).conf or create one if it doesn't exist.
Example:
sudo nano /etc/dhclient-eth0.conf
Then add the following line, replacing the desired FQDN between the double quotes:
supersede host-name "hostname.domain-name";
Persists between reboots and hostname and hostname -f works as intended.

Answer 10

Tested on Debian.
The dhclient sets the hostname using DHCP
You can override this by creating a custom hook script in /etc/dhcp/dhclient-exit-hooks.d/custom_set_hostname that would read the hostname from /etc/hostname:
if [ -f "/etc/hostname" ]; then
new_host_name=$(cat /etc/hostname)
fi
The script must have the execute permission.
It's important to set the new_host_name variable and not calling the hostname command directly as any call to the hostname command will be overriden by another hook or the dhclient-script which uses this variable

Answer 11

When creating a VM, you can specify a custom FQDN hostname as an optional parameter. This feature is currently in Beta.
$ gcloud beta compute instances create INSTANCE_NAME --hostname example.hostname
This should work across OSes, and prevent the need for workaround scripts.
More info in the docs.
-- Sirui (Product Manager, Google Compute Engine)

Answer 12

In my CentOS VMs I found that the script /etc/dhcp/dhclient.d/google_hostname.sh, installed by the google-compute-engine RPM, actually changed the hostname. This happens when the instance gets its IP address during boot.
While it's not the long-term solution I really want, for now I simply deleted this script. The hostname I set with hostnamectl now persists after a reboot.
The script is likely to be in exactly the same place in Debian/Ubuntu VMs, but of course I don't run any of those.

Answer 13

There is some hack you can do to achieve this as i did. Just do:
sudo chattr +i /etc/hosts
This command actually makes the file "(i)mmutable", which means even root can't change it (unless root does chattr -i /etc/hosts first, of course).
As above, you can undo this with sudo chattr -i /etc/hosts
Cheer!

Answer 14

An easy way to fix this is to set up a startup script with custom metadata.
Key :startup-script
Value:
#! /bin/bash
hostname <desired hostname>