VPN Changes Hostname

Question

When I connect to various VPN servers (Windows PPTP, Cisco IPSEC) the hostname of my laptop gets updated.

Is there a setting somewhere that will stop this from happening?

Answer 1

The VPN's DNS server probably assigns hostname together with the IP address and the computer uses it instead of what you've set during setup and what appears in System Preferences -> Sharing -> Computer name.

To set a permanent hostname do sudo scutil --set HostName DesiredHostname in Terminal.app (there are also ComputerName and LocalHostName that can be changed there).

You can still* set it in /etc/hostconfig, by adding HOSTNAME=DesiredHostname at the bottom of the file. (*I am using this, but it may be depreciated at some point as the beginning of that file says # This file is going away).

Restart may be required in either case.