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I used to have a Mac hostname as simply "macpro" under Snow Leopard. After doing a clean installation of Lion, then a migration to restore my files, it's now called "Georges-Mac-Pro".

What is the current recommended way to change the hostname (preferably to something that does not include ".local")? From some googling, it appears that $ hostname macpro won't stick permanently.

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Don't put the answer in the question. Leave the answer as an answer. Comment on the accepted answer if you must. – Jason Salaz♦ Sep 17 '11 at 0:17

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up vote 5 down vote accepted

Just put macpro back in the sharing field.

The .local is there to catch fully qualified domain names and help with bonjour - you can't avoid that, but it won't show up anywhere but that pane.

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Ah, so simple, thanks. – Caffeine Coma Sep 16 '11 at 21:04
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The submenu Sharing under System Settings is the preferred way to change the hostname of your machine.

The .local domain simply means that the IP address will be resolved by the Bonjour ZeroConf service instead of DNS.

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You only need the edit control if you want a .local host name different than the main name. For example - your mac could be "Mac The Mac" with a mac.local name - all set from the system preference pane. Normally they are the same and the local name has to be more strict about the dns valid characters such as no spaces, etc... – bmike♦ Sep 16 '11 at 22:00

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