How do I set hostname in docker-compose?

Question

In my docker-compose.yml file, I have the following. However the container does not pick up the hostname value. Any ideas?

dns:
  image: phensle         


        

Answer 1

The simplest way I have found is to just set the container name in the docker-compose.yml See container_name documentation. It is applicable to docker-compose v1+. It works for container to container, not from the host machine to container.

services:
  dns:
    image: phensley/docker-dns
    container_name: affy

Now you should be able to access affy from other containers using the container name. I had to do this for multiple redis servers in a development environment.

NOTE The solution works so long as you don't need to scale. Such as consistant individual developer environments.