Configuring A System Name - Cisco Catalyst 4500 series Administration Manual

Configuring a System Name and Prompt

Configuring a System Name

To manually configure a system name, perform this task:
Command
Step 1
configure terminal
Step 2
hostname name
Step 3
end
Step 4
show running-config
Step 5
copy running-config
startup-config
When you set the system name, it is also used as the system prompt.
Understanding DNS
The DNS protocol controls the Domain Name System (DNS), a distributed database with which you can
map hostnames to IP addresses. When you configure DNS on your switch, you can substitute the
hostname for the IP address with all IP commands, such as ping, telnet, connect, and related Telnet
support operations.
IP defines a hierarchical naming scheme that allows a device to be identified by its location or domain.
Domain names are pieced together with periods (.) as the delimiting characters. For example, Cisco
Systems is a commercial organization that IP identifies by a com domain name, so its domain name is
cisco.com. A specific device in this domain, for example, the File Transfer Protocol (FTP) system is
identified as ftp.cisco.com.
To keep track of domain names, IP has defined the concept of a domain name server, which holds a cache
(or database) of names mapped to IP addresses. To map domain names to IP addresses, you must first
identify the hostnames, specify the name server that is present on your network, and enable the DNS.
These sections contain this configuration information:
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•
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Software Configuration Guide—Release IOS XE 3.6.0E and IOS 15.2(2)E
4-22
Purpose
Enters global configuration mode.
Manually configures a system name.
The default setting is switch.
The name must follow the rules for ARPANET hostnames. They must start
with a letter, end with a letter or digit, and have as interior characters only
letters, digits, and hyphens. Names can be up to 63 characters.
To return to the default hostname, use the no hostname global
configuration command.
Returns to privileged EXEC mode.
Verifies your entries.
(Optional) Saves your entries in the configuration file.
Default DNS Configuration, page 4-23
Setting Up DNS, page 4-23
Displaying the DNS Configuration, page 4-24
Chapter 4 Administering the Switch
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