NAME    [Toc]    [Back]

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

LIBRARY    [Toc]    [Back]

     Standard C Library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS    [Toc]    [Back]

     #include <unistd.h>

     int
     gethostname(char *name, size_t namelen);

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

DESCRIPTION    [Toc]    [Back]

     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-terminated
 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    [Toc]    [Back]

     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    [Toc]    [Back]

     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    [Toc]    [Back]

     sysconf(3), sysctl(3)

STANDARDS    [Toc]    [Back]

     The gethostname() function conforms to IEEE Std 1003.1-2001
     (``POSIX.1'').  Callers should be aware that {HOST_NAME_MAX} may be variable
 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 terminating
 null.  The sethostname() function and the error returns for
     gethostname() are not standardized.

HISTORY    [Toc]    [Back]

     The gethostname() function appeared in 4.2BSD.  The namelen argument to
     gethostname() was changed to size_t in FreeBSD 5.2 for alignment with
     IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 (``POSIX.1'').


FreeBSD 5.2.1			August 18, 2003 		 FreeBSD 5.2.1