How to set the hostname for a Debian Jessie system?

Solution 1:

Found the problem. The base AMI on EC2 for Debian Jessie, does not have dbus installed. hostnamectl seems to need dbus. So the fix is to:

apt-get update && apt-get install -y dbus

And then:

hostname=myname
echo "127.0.0.1      $hostname" >> /etc/hosts
hostnamectl set-hostname "$hostname"
echo "$hostname" > /etc/hostname # uneeded

This worked.

Solution 2:

To change the hostanme of your EC2 host, you must follow the steps bellow :

1. Login as root :$: sudo su -
2. Install dbus :$: apt-get update && apt-get install -y dbus
3. Setup hostname : hostnamectl set-hostname <HOSTNAME>

Make sure to change <HOSTNAME> with the hostname you want to set.