Say our host is called alpha and we want to rename it to bravo For a temporary change (does not survive reboot) run in a terminal: (sudo) hostname bravo For a permanent change, edit /etc/hosts find the entry for alpha and change it to bravo Next, edit /etc/hostname and replace alpha with bravo NOTE:BSD based systems use /etc/HOSTNAME instead! Lastly, EITHER restart the networking service in a terminal: (sudo) service networking restart and log out / log in again, OR reboot the machine. NOTE: If the machine cannot be rebooted immediately after the changes, or you do not want to log out of your session until later, simply run: (sudo) hostname bravo