The "hostname" tool falls back to setting the hostname to "localhost" if
/etc/hostname does not exist. Distribution init scripts have the same
fallback. However, if userspace never calls sethostname, such as when
booting with init=/bin/sh, or otherwise booting a minimal system without
the usual init scripts, the default hostname of "(none)" remains,
unhelpfully appearing in various places such as prompts ("root@(none):~#")
and logs. Furthermore, "(none)" doesn't typically resolve to anything
useful.
Make the default hostname configurable. This removes the need for the
standard fallback, provides a useful default for systems that never call
sethostname, and makes minimal systems that much more useful with less
configuration. Distributions could choose to use "localhost" here to
avoid the fallback, while embedded systems may wish to use a specific
target hostname.
Signed-off-by: Josh Triplett <josh@joshtriplett.org>
Acked-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Acked-by: David Miller <davem@davemloft.net>
Cc: Serge Hallyn <serue@us.ibm.com>
Cc: Kel Modderman <kel@otaku42.de>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
bd5dc17be8