[topcat]

Started up Terminal this morning and noticed that the host name that appeared at the prompt was not the usual one, but a host name I have never heard of. Searching the directories showed I am, in fact, connected to my own computer. Checking the computer name in System Preferences - Sharing showed that it has not changed. Doing a finder search for visible and invisible files with this new host name turned up nothing.

So how could this happen? Is it a hack? and how can I restore the orignal host name?

[voth]

If you look in /etc/hostconfig

by default it should be something like:
HOSTCONFIG=-AUTOMATIC-

To reset it you'll need to edit the file as root
su root
<password>

launch your favorite text editor

pico /etc/hostconfig

edit the line HOSTCONFIG=-AUTOMATIC- to HOSTCONFIG=your_hostname

ctrl + x

save

Hope that helps

[topcat]

It doesn't seem to be a problem with /etc/hostconfig. I looked there and it contains the line:
HOSTCONFIG=-AUTOMATIC-

There is no mention of the strange host name in the file and the rest of it looks reasonable as far as I can tell.

[TeknoTurd]

i think he meant for you to change it from AUTOMATIC to the name you desire because when it automatically grabs a host name it will correspont to whatever network your on. is this accurate?

[wadesworld]

Sounds to me like it just picked up the DNS name of whatever DHCP address your service provider gave you.

That's quite common, and nothing to worry about.

Wade

[topcat]

Some progress, but I still don't get it!

First, apologies for not really grasping Voth's reply at first read.

Second, it looks like TeknoTurd and wadesworld are right - the host name is being picked up from the DNS. If I disconnect from the network and start Terminal, I get the expected prompt.

But I don't like having a weird hostname, so I followed Voth's suggestion and edited /etc/hostconfig. This didn't change anything when I restarted Terminal, so I rebooted. Surprise! Now when I start Terminal, the prompt reads "localhost:~", not the host name I put into /etc/hostconfig.

Any thoughts?