Linux Administration Cookbook

SSH using hostnames instead of IPs

In our examples so far, we've been using IP addresses to connect to our remote host.

SSH is also capable of connecting to hostnames.

First, we have to create a quick hosts entry so that we can resolve our name to an IP address:

[vagrant@centos1 ~]$ echo "192.168.33.11 centos2" | sudo tee -a /etc/hosts

The preceding code is a quick way to make a remote host resolvable to a name. There's no guarantee that it will stick on some systems, especially those where a third party controls the hosts file. In a real-world scenario, it is highly likely you'll have some sort of DNS setup that will make connecting to hostnames easier.

We should now be able to SSH using the host's name:

[vagrant@centos1 ~]$ ssh centos2 ...