localhost DNS name

[mvanbeck]

When I deployed the virtual appliance for Log Insight and went through the various dialog boxes for the deployment, I specified a hostname for the virtual appliance under the networking properties. After the virtual appliance was deployed and powered on, I SSH'ed into the virtual appliance and noticed that the hostname within the virtual appliance OS is still set to "localhost". Is that by design?  I assumed it would take on the name of the FQDN hostname I provided in the network properties screen.

- Mike

[mvanbeck]

I came across this thread regarding a Data Recovery Appliance from VMware. I'm wondering if this is the same issue where the appliance does a reverse lookup to the DNS server (from running the /opt/vmware/share/vami/vami_set_hostname script on bootup) and if it doesn't find a DNS entry for itself it sets its FQDN to localhost.localdomain (see the correct answer from Rupen)?

http://communities.vmware.com/message/1266767#1266767

[SADorsett]

Have you tried ensuring the hostname is properly set on the VAMI UI page? Go to https:[log_insight_ipaddress]:5480 and enter your log insight creds. Under Network | Address you should be able to change the hostname. After changing the hostname on the VAMI page I would suggest rebooting the VM to see if the configuration change survives a reboot.

[julienvarela]

hi,

I had the same issue, please try to reboot your appliance and check if the hostname is correct.

Regards,

Julien.

[mvanbeck]

Yes, the hostname is properly set within the Edit Settings of the virtual appliance (vApp options). Also, the hostname of my virtual appliance is currently set to the proper name within the OS and that is because I have ensured the proper DNS entry is in our DNS server. However, I just did a test where I deleted the DNS entry for the FQDN of our Log Insight appliance from our DNS server, then if I reboot the Log Insight virtual appliance, the OS name will switch back to "localhost" because it can't find that entry in DNS.

[sflanders · Accepted solution]

The reverse DNS lookup is likely causing the issue. Thanks for reporting this, I will ensure it gets added to the release notes.

[mvanbeck]

Thanks. For most instances like ours where we are using a static IP address and have permissions to add DNS entries manually to our DNS servers it really isn't an issue. However if people don't have permissions to add DNS entries into their DNS servers and are relying on DHCP to hand out an IP address for the appliance and then DHCP enters the DNS entry in the DNS server, it will enter "localhost" as the entry in DNS. We observed that in our environment before we used a static IP address and added the DNS entry manually.

I will mark this as answered. Thanks