Node and Host Name Sizes on HP-UX: Using the Expanded Capabilities of HP-UX

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fully qualified domain name (FQDN)
Internet host names can be either a single system name label such as “myhost”, or include the
hierarchical Internet domain labels, such as “myhost.corp.hp.com”. The latter is a fully-
qualified domain name. The full name is limited to 64 octets (bytes) on HP-UX versions prior
to 11i v2 (and any 11i v2 system with the tunable expanded_node_host_names==0 or
not available). Name labels are limited to 63 octets by DNS.
Function-Level Versioning (FLV)
A feature of recent HP-UX compilers, linkers, and loaders that allows versioning of individual
functions in a library. Previously, if any function in a library was versioned, the entire library
must be versioned.
gethostname(2)
The API by which applications obtain the Internet host name for the system on which they are
executing. See also node name, and MAXHOSTNAMELEN.
host name
The Internet name for the system. The host name can be a single name label or an FQDN. In
most cases, customers set the host name to just the first name label (no domain qualification).
See also DNS.
hostname(1)
A command that lets users or scripts obtain the Internet host name for the system on which
they are executing. This command also supports the administrative setting of the Internet host
name (via sethostname()). See also DNS.
_HPUX_API_LEVEL
This is the compilation symbol used to select the API version.
investigate
In this document, refers inspection of the source code and documentation. The investigation
can be aided by the use of scripts to search for certain symbols or patterns.
long node name or host name
Host or node names that are longer (that is, have a greater string length) than the default
maximums of 8 or 64 bytes, respectively.
MAXHOSTNAMELEN
A symbolic constant parameter that defines the maximum length of host name strings. Its
value is 64 for the default compilation environment. Its value is 256 if the 20040821 HP-UX
API level is selected. It is often used to establish the size of buffers that accept the returned
value from gethostname(2). However, its use is discouraged. It is better to use
sysconf(_SC_HOST_NAME_MAX).
NodeHostNameXpnd
The optional product bundle for HP-UX 11i v2 that allows you to set the node or host name
longer than the prior limits. For 11i v3 or later updates and releases the capabilities of this
bundle are included in the base OS product.
node name
This is the system’s UUCP name, separate from the Internet host name. HP documentation
strongly recommends that the node name be the same as the first label of the host name.
Many products assume the node name can be used as the Internet name for the system. The