Google Compute Engine: how to set hostname permanently?

Question

How do I set the hostname of an instance in GCE permanently? I can set it via hostname,but after reboot it is gone again.

I tried to feed in metadata (hostname:f.q.d

Answer 1

There is some hack you can do to achieve this as i did. Just do:

sudo chattr +i /etc/hosts

This command actually makes the file "(i)mmutable", which means even root can't change it (unless root does chattr -i /etc/hosts first, of course).

As above, you can undo this with sudo chattr -i /etc/hosts

Cheer!