October 14, 2005 GETHOSTNAME 3

### NAME

gethostname, sethostname - get/set name of current host

### LIBRARY

Standard C Library (libc, -lc)

### SYNOPSIS

```int` gethostname(```char *name``, size_t namelen`)
```int` sethostname(```const char *name``, size_t namelen`)

### DESCRIPTION

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

sethostname(``) 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.

### RETURN VALUES

If the call succeeds a value of 0 is returned. If the call fails, a value of -1 is returned and an error code is placed in the global location errno.

### ERRORS

If the gethostname(``) or sethostname(``) functions fail, they will set errno for any of the errors specified for the routine sysctl(3).

### SEE ALSO

gethostid(3), sysctl(3), sysctl(8)

### STANDARDS

The gethostname(``) function conforms to X/Open Portability Guide Issue 4, Version 2 (``XPG4.2'') .

### HISTORY

The gethostname function call appeared in 4.2BSD.

### BUGS

Host names are limited to ```MAXHOSTNAMELEN` (from ```sys/param.h<.blm Pp`)`>` characters including null-termination, currently 256.