Mac OS X and DHCP is screwing your Host Name

2016-08-12 1 min read Ronny Trommer

I’m using Mac OS X with iterm2, oh-my-zsh and spend 75% of my time in those terminals. It is totally annoying to me if I connect to a DHCP network and it screws up my hostname. Especially when I’m used to looking at the prompt which tells me the host I’m connected to.

It is possible to fix your computer name for several things using the scutil command which requires administration permissions. I’ve found a link to the Mac OS X Server Worksheet which explains a few things in more detail. Here is what I did to prevent my computer changing the host name.

User Friendly Name, showed in Sharing Preference Panel

sudo scutil --set ComputerName blinky

SSH and Remote login

sudo scutil --set HostName blinky

Name for Bonjour, e.g. Airdrop

sudo scutil --set LocalHostName blinky

In hope this helps and hope I’ll find the page again when I forgot how to do it :)