A name is the identifier of your computer on the network. A hostname is the DNS name of a computer on a network.
Hostnames can be used for locating computers on the network. For the computer to contact another computer by using a hostname, the hostname will either appear in the DNS server or in the hosts file.
In a fully qualified domain name, such as computer1.server.tech-faq.com, the hostname portion of the FQDN is computer1. The server.tech-faq.com is known as the suffix. Together, the hostname (computer1) and the suffix (server.tech-faq.com) reference a single specific resource on a TCP/IP network. The suffix is important for hostnames as it allows two identical hostnames to exist on the network without conflict. For example, computer1.server.tech-faq.com can exist on the same network with computer1.workstation.tech-faq.com. The suffix is used to differentiate between the two names.
Characteristics of Hostnames
Hostname are used in virtually all TCP/IP environments. The following provides details of a hostname:
• A hostname is an alias that an administrator assigns to a computer to identify an IP host.
• The hostname is a maximum 255 character string.
• A single hostname can be assigned to a host. Name resolution methods, such as the hosts file or DNS, can have multiple hostnames which will map to the IP address of the same host. For example, the host server.tech-faq.com could have entries in DNS for both server.tech-faq.com and www.tech-faq.com. Either name will resolve to the IP address of server.tech-faq.com.
• It is possible for one hostname to resolve to more than one IP address. For example, three identical web servers are all identified in DNS with the name www.tech-faq.com. When a client attempts to connect to www.tech-faq.com through a web browser, three IP addresses are returned from the DNS query.
• A hostname can be used in place of an IP address when using the `ping` utility or other TCP/IP utilities.
• To be of value for name resolution, a hostname and its corresponding IP address must be configured either in a DNS server or in a hosts file.
• The `hostname` utility displays the hostname that is assigned to your system.
• Although Windows 2003 and Windows XP uses the same hostname as NetBIOS name, the hostname does not need to match the NetBIOS computer name.