FreeBSD Man Pages

sethostname(3)

NAME

     gethostname, sethostname -- get/set name of current host

LIBRARY

     Standard C Library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS

     #include <unistd.h>

     int
     gethostname(char *name, size_t namelen);

     int
     sethostname(const char *name, int namelen);

DESCRIPTION

     The gethostname() function returns the standard host name for the current
     processor, as previously set by sethostname().  The namelen argument
     specifies the size of the name array.  The returned name is null-termi-
     nated unless insufficient space is provided.

     The sethostname() function sets the name of the host machine to be name,
     which has length namelen.	This call is restricted to the super-user and
     is normally used only when the system is bootstrapped.

     Host names are limited to {HOST_NAME_MAX} characters, not including the
     trailing null, currently 255.

RETURN VALUES

     Upon successful completion, the value 0 is returned; otherwise the
     value -1 is returned and the global variable errno is set to indicate the
     error.

ERRORS

     The following errors may be returned by these calls:

     [EFAULT]		The name or namelen argument gave an invalid address.

     [ENAMETOOLONG]	The current host name is longer than namelen.  (For
			gethostname() only.)

     [EPERM]		The caller tried to set the host name and was not the
			super-user.

SEE ALSO

     sysconf(3), sysctl(3)

STANDARDS

     The gethostname() function conforms to IEEE Std 1003.1-2001
     (``POSIX.1'').  Callers should be aware that {HOST_NAME_MAX} may be vari-
     able or infinite, but is guaranteed to be no less than
     {_POSIX_HOST_NAME_MAX}.  On older systems, this limit was defined in the
     non-standard header <sys/param.h> as MAXHOSTNAMELEN, and counted the ter-
     minating null.  The sethostname() function and the error returns for
     gethostname() are not standardized.

HISTORY

SPONSORED LINKS