How do I change the hostname in Solaris 9?

Thanks for your note and for buying my Solaris book. True confession time, though: subsequent to writing that book, I have loaned out my Solaris Blade system to a colleague for a research project, so I actually don't have an Solaris 9 box available to test out my answer.

However, it's pretty straightforward nonetheless.

Your first step is to become root, which you should be able to do by using either the sudo or su root command. Try both, one will work (I prefer the former, personally).

Once you've done that, move into the /etc directory and use a combination of find and grep to see what files contain the name "alfred":

      find . -type f -print | xargs grep -i alfred

I'm sure it'll be in at least /etc/hosts, /etc/nodename and /etc/hostname.xxx (where 'xxx' is your network interface name, like en0 or hme0). It's possible that it might also appear in any of the following too: /etc/net/ticlts/hosts, /etc/net/ticots/hosts, /etc/net/ticotsord/hosts and /etc/inet/ipnodes.

Anywhere you find "alfred", change it to the hostname of your choice. Don't use spaces or punctuation in the name, however, to ensure that no Solaris applications trip up or get confused.

That should do the trick. Reboot and you should have re-christened your Solaris 9 system with a new hostname!