hostname – What’s the Point of Changing the Hostname on a Server?

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I know that changing my DNS records to point to my IP address is how I get my server accessible, so that a request for myDomain.com points to my IP address. With that said, why does a machine need to have a hostname? Why does it care what it's hostname is if the DNS system will route requests to it anyway?

Also, if I'm running a simple personal webserver, is it okay to just leave my hostname "local"? Should I change it to the FQDN?

EDIT
I just found an excellent answer on another SO site here: https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/50529/32623

Best Answer

Best practices dictate that you set your hostname to something meaningful - usually the FQDN of the server (if the system has a role where it's associated with multiple FQDNs -- like a shared web hosting server -- you would typically set a hostname like webhosting001.provider.com for its local hostname, with a corresponding DNS entry).

This is done for a number of reasons, but there are two main ones:

  • As Nathan mentioned, some programs use the hostname for various purposes.
    Having an unresolvable hostname can cause unpredictable behavior.

  • When you are logged in to a machine its local hostname provides a convenient way to identify it.
    This is a good way to sanity check yourself before rebooting a host.
    It is also important in an environment with multiple machines -- 100 systems all called local will get very confusing, but 100 machines named web##, mail##, etc. (or some other naming scheme you select and stick to) makes them easy to tell apart.

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