Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Managed Hosting and Services : Hostname is used as an account.

[WebEnzyme]

Hello

I was just checking the WHM manual and it said that the host name should not be used for anything on the server.. i.e it should not be an account on the server

however, the dedicated server company did not point that out when I first signed up.. so my host name: something.domain.com is actually my domain name... I use that domain name and at some point it was actually the main and important account on the server

what implication did that have?

is it okay to keep it? is it dangerous to do anything with that domain? like changing the IP address?

thanks!

[macdonaldp]

Can you explain a bit more?
As far as I can see, you are saying that the hostname is something like hostname.yourdomain.com, which would be completely fine. You just can't use hostname.yourdomain.com as a subdomain for yourdomain.com

[XLR8]

First let's read what it says:

WHM docs:
Your hostname should be a Fully Qualified Domain Name that will not be used elsewhere on the server. You should never set your hostname to an name that is already used (www, ftp, mail, etc) or to the name of an account on the server (www.domain.com).

--
Now honestly I know it is OK to have the actual domain name of your company (which also exists in the list of accounts most likely) AS PART of the hostname. Many do this and that is OK. What is not OK is to have the same fully qualified domain name (ie: www.blurstorm.com) as the hostname itself. But if it is part of the hostname (ie: whm.blurstorm.com) and resolves properly then that is acceptable.

[WebEnzyme]

oh thanks guys... I understand now. I thought that the whole domain name should not be used as an account when part of it (a subdomain of it) is being the hostname. but as i understand from u now.. all that is important is not to use the subdomain itself for anything else. thanks again.

[mrzippy]

Originally Posted by WebEnzyme

oh thanks guys... I understand now. I thought that the whole domain name should not be used as an account when part of it (a subdomain of it) is being the hostname. but as i understand from u now.. all that is important is not to use the subdomain itself for anything else. thanks again.

Yes, this is correct. If you use the hostname for an actual account on the server, then you'll have all kinds of horrible warning notices displayed to you and your users.

Things like:

WARNING!! THIS SHOULD NEVER HAPPEN!!
Hostname is used as an account name. Workaround enabled.

It will look really bad, especially if you're using that account as a reseller account and your customers are trying to do something... since then THEY will see this message and freak out that they've killed the server.