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Just getting back into Linux and my first CentOS install in nine years. So I thought I would use the Getting Started Guide to augment my 'rtfm' habits. When I got to the set hostname, I noticed that a default in the format li1234-567.members.linode.com had already been set. Is there ANY truly beneficial reason to reset this hostname to something human readable? I will be using goDaddy DNS for virtual hosts.

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Reset to default
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Having human-readable hostnames makes life easier on humans. As the Pets vs Cattle blog post states this is no longer considered a good practice. He started in a similar place to you:

In fact, I still remember when I was cutting my teeth on system administration and all my servers had cute names.

But after that got frustrating he found a better way

The difference between the pre-virtualisation model and the post-virtualisation model can be thought of as the difference between pets and cattle. Pets are given loving names, like pussinboots (or in my case, Tortoise, Achilles, etc.). They are unique, lovingly hand-raised, and cared for. You scale them up by making them bigger. And when they get sick, you nurse them back to health. Whereas cattle are given functional identification numbers like vm0042. They are almost identical to each other. You scale them out by getting more of them. And when one gets sick, you replace it with another one.

It sounds like your server are cattle so naming them lovingly would waste your time.

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    Linode has millions of VMs, but this guy only has one. You certainly number your herd of cattle, but if you only have one cow, it may well be a pet...
    – Michael Hampton
    Feb 19, 2016 at 18:04
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    Scalability will ultimately be of concern for my projects; if human-readable names are more or less 'cosmetic', then the KISS principle seems to apply in my current deployment at the moment.
    – Stephen
    Mar 26, 2016 at 1:40
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In contrast the only technical argument I can think of against resetting your hostname is that you might overlook updating the reverse DNS records to match, which has a detrimental effect when that host will be sending email.

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  • Thanks for that input. I'll have to study Reverse DNS further to consider all the implications. Technical benefits were my focus.
    – Stephen
    Mar 26, 2016 at 1:41

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