It used to be the case that, when placing an order, a field allowing you to set a Hostname would show up. As of December 2017, this field was removed, and instead, is automatically (randomly) filled out by our system. Our reasoning for doing so can be found below!
This could be as simple as "server", or as complex "server-la-2017.mylinuxvps.com". Linux, and some applications that you may try to install (i.e. cPanel/WHM, Virtualmin, etc) may complain if the hostname isn't an FQDN format (i.e. "server.domain.com").
We made the decision to remove the field from our order form for a number of reasons, one of which is that we found that a lot of people found the "hostname" terminology confusing. Ultimately, as a hosting provider, we want to make everything as simple as possible - this includes our order form. In many cases, a valid FQDN hostname isn't needed and doesn't matter. Examples include, but are not limited to, hosting a game server, a proxy/VPN, desktop environment, etc.
The change we have implemented means that your hostname will be automatically generated in the format of "linux.string.vps" (where `string` is 6 randomly generated characters). This is an ideal solution since it removes the confusion from the order form, and means that certain applications (such as the ones mentioned above) won't complain about the hostname not being in an FQDN format.
You may be wondering something along the lines of:
"OK, but am I stuck with the random hostname, can I change it?"
The answer is Yes! You can change it!
1) Visit the Services area in the Customer Portal
2) Click on the appropriate service
3) Enter your desired hostname in the "New Hostname" field (screenshot)
4) Click on Change
Your hostname will then be updated in our billing system (i.e. the services page, future invoices) along with in our VPS Control Panel and your VPS' itself.
