Junk Drawer
For all those little papers scattered across your desk
Junk Drawer
For all those little papers scattered across your desk
I stand for the Constitution, for due process, and for community that takes care of each other.
I explain (as best I can) how I figured out what screwed up my machine’s hostname the day before a vacation.
July 8th, I’m getting ready to be out of town, and doing a few updates to my daily driver (beefy PC running Gentoo). There’s a kernel update available, and I want to reboot and make sure everything comes up so it will be accessible via TailScale while I’m out of town.
Imagine my surprise when the reboot shows the hostname as localhost!
Well, that’s odd, I think—must be the new kernel. So I reboot and use GRUB to load the previous kernel, which I of course still have around. No change, big scary. And of course, after launching X and trying to reset the hostname manually, things break even worse. Uh oh, my desktop is broken too? I can’t start new programs? What is going on?
This feels like a really bad upgrade.
I spent a few hours poking around, assuming that my desktop issues and my hostname issues were separate. I even figured maybe TailScale was futzing it up somehow, so I tried booting with that disabled—no luck. I had dinner plans with my family, though, so I had to give up and leave (machine powered down).
While there, I realized my best shot was to revert all the updates I had done and slowly try to narrow down which update broke things. I could of course restore from the prior night’s backup, but… I’d spent the morning setting up Wine to run an old childhood favorite (I Spy Spooky Mansion), and I didn’t want to have to redo that work. So, I really wanted to try downgrading first.
When I got home, I set out to do that, eyeballing the qlop output:
$ qlop -d 2026-07-07 -d 2026-07-09 -E
N app-emulation/wine-gecko-2.47.4
N app-emulation/wine-mono-10.4.1
N app-eselect/eselect-wine-2.0.2-r2
N sys-libs/libunwind-1.8.3
N app-emulation/wine-desktop-common-20150204-r2
N dev-util/mingw64-toolchain-14.0.0
N app-emulation/wine-vanilla-11.0
U dev-libs/vala-common-0.56.19 [0.56.18]
U dev-libs/libunistring-1.4.2 [1.3]
U sys-apps/sandbox-2.49 [2.46]
U dev-libs/gobject-introspection-common-1.86.0 [1.84.0]
U app-containers/containerd-2.2.5-r1 [2.2.2-r1]
U app-admin/eselect-1.4.32 [1.4.31]
N media-libs/libid3tag-0.16.4
U kde-frameworks/extra-cmake-modules-6.27.0 [6.25.0]
U app-eselect/eselect-lua-4-r3 [4-r2]
N dev-libs/snowball-stemmer-3.1.1
N dev-cpp/simdutf-9.0.0
U dev-python/snakeoil-0.11.1 [0.11.0]
U sys-apps/portage-3.0.81.1 [3.0.79-r1]
N dev-util/glib-utils-2.88.2
N sys-apps/pkgcore-0.12.35
N sys-kernel/gentoo-kernel-6.18.37_p1
R net-libs/nodejs-24.14.0
N virtual/dist-kernel-6.18.37_p1
U dev-util/pkgcheck-0.10.40-r1 [0.10.39-r1]
U dev-libs/glib-2.88.2 [2.84.4-r5]
U dev-util/gdbus-codegen-2.88.2 [2.84.4]
U app-text/enchant-2.8.16 [2.8.12]
U dev-libs/gobject-introspection-1.86.0 [1.84.0-r2]
U sys-apps/hwloc-2.12.2 [2.11.2-r1]
U net-print/cups-2.4.19 [2.4.16]
U dev-lang/vala-0.56.19 [0.56.18]
U dev-python/pygobject-3.56.3 [3.50.1]
U x11-libs/pango-1.57.1 [1.57.0]
U gnome-base/librsvg-2.62.2-r1 [2.60.0]
R media-libs/imlib2-1.12.6
U x11-libs/gtk+-3.24.52 [3.24.51]
N gui-libs/qt-color-widgets-3.0.0
N dev-libs/appstream-1.0.6
N kde-frameworks/kguiaddons-6.27.0
N kde-frameworks/threadweaver-6.27.0
N kde-frameworks/ksecretd-services-6.27.0
N kde-frameworks/ki18n-6.27.0
N kde-frameworks/kcoreaddons-6.27.0
N kde-frameworks/kconfig-6.27.0
N kde-frameworks/karchive-6.27.0
N kde-frameworks/kcodecs-6.27.0
N kde-frameworks/kitemviews-6.27.0
N kde-frameworks/kdbusaddons-6.27.0
N kde-frameworks/breeze-icons-6.27.0
N kde-frameworks/kwindowsystem-6.27.0
N kde-frameworks/kglobalaccel-6.27.0
N kde-frameworks/kwidgetsaddons-6.27.0
N kde-frameworks/sonnet-6.27.0
N kde-frameworks/solid-6.27.0
N kde-frameworks/kirigami-6.27.0
U net-misc/networkmanager-1.56.0 [1.52.1]
U media-video/pipewire-1.6.7 [1.6.4]
U net-libs/webkit-gtk-2.52.3-r411 [2.50.5-r410]
N kde-frameworks/kcrash-6.27.0
N kde-apps/libkexiv2-26.04.3
N kde-frameworks/kcolorscheme-6.27.0
N kde-frameworks/kcompletion-6.27.0
N media-gfx/flameshot-13.3.0
N kde-frameworks/kpty-6.27.0
N kde-frameworks/kdoctools-6.27.0
U kde-frameworks/kimageformats-6.27.0 [6.25.0]
U media-video/wireplumber-0.5.15 [0.5.14]
U kde-frameworks/knotifications-6.27.0 [6.25.0]
N kde-frameworks/kservice-6.27.0
N kde-frameworks/ktextwidgets-6.27.0
N kde-frameworks/kjobwidgets-6.27.0
N kde-frameworks/kconfigwidgets-6.27.0
U kde-frameworks/kiconthemes-6.27.0 [6.25.0]
N www-client/firefox-bin-152.0.5
N kde-frameworks/kded-6.27.0
N kde-frameworks/kbookmarks-6.27.0
N kde-frameworks/kxmlgui-6.27.0
U kde-frameworks/kwallet-6.27.0 [6.25.0]
U kde-frameworks/kwallet-runtime-6.27.0 [6.25.0]
U kde-frameworks/kio-6.27.0 [6.25.0]
U kde-frameworks/kparts-6.27.0 [6.25.0]
U kde-frameworks/kcmutils-6.27.0 [6.25.0]
U kde-apps/okular-26.04.3 [26.04.1]
Something interesting stood out: NetworkManager.
The NEWS file for NetworkManager didn’t hint at significant changes in hostname settings, though. A little internet searching brought me to a blog post about v1.40 and a similar issue, which definitely felt like the right track! Only, I’ve been running 1.52.1 for the (admittedly short: not quite 12 months yet) lifetime of the machine, and the upgrade was to 1.56.0!
Anyway, that article also pointed me towards GLib, which I noticed had a few updates as well:
U dev-libs/glib-2.88.2 [2.84.4-r5]
U dev-util/gdbus-codegen-2.88.2 [2.84.4]
(Once again nothing in the NEWS file stood out.)
So, I next tried downgrading only those packages (more qlop output):
UD net-misc/networkmanager-1.52.1 [1.56.0]
UD dev-libs/glib-2.84.4-r5 [2.88.2]
UD dev-util/gdbus-codegen-2.84.4 [2.88.2]
Absolutely no change (with either kernel)! Agh!
At some point in this process, I decided to narrow down the desktop issue, and I discovered that programs wouldn’t start on the desktop if the hostname didn’t match what it was when the X server started. I can’t 100% explain this (is it because X is network aware? Because of DBus addresses?), but it did give me hope that solving this hostname would fix everything else.
Now that I knew NetworkManager was a likely culprit, too, I went back to logs
with a more useful query than localhost or hostname. And I noticed something
a bit suspicious:
/var/log/syslog:Jul 8 20:59:51 merguez NetworkManager[1966]: <info> [1783558791.7113] hostname: static hostname changed from (none) to "localhost"
First: why is it being changed? Second, why does it say “(none)” as the old value?
Even more worrying, this has been happening for a long while:
$ zgrep 'to "localhost' /var/log/syslog*
/var/log/syslog:Jul 8 20:59:51 merguez NetworkManager[1966]: <info> [1783558791.7113] hostname: static hostname changed from (none) to "localhost"
/var/log/syslog:Jul 8 21:09:06 merguez NetworkManager[15809]: <info> [1783559346.0807] hostname: static hostname changed from (none) to "localhost"
/var/log/syslog:Jul 8 21:32:41 merguez NetworkManager[15809]: <info> [1783560761.1627] hostname: static hostname changed from "merguez" to "localhost"
/var/log/syslog:Jul 8 21:35:40 merguez NetworkManager[46052]: <info> [1783560940.6739] hostname: static hostname changed from (none) to "localhost"
/var/log/syslog:Jul 8 21:38:50 merguez NetworkManager[60328]: <info> [1783561130.4501] hostname: static hostname changed from (none) to "localhost"
/var/log/syslog:Jul 8 21:40:15 merguez NetworkManager[2049]: <info> [1783561215.0657] hostname: static hostname changed from (none) to "localhost"
/var/log/syslog.0:May 10 10:58:15 merguez NetworkManager[1980]: <info> [1778425095.8529] hostname: static hostname changed from (none) to "localhost"
/var/log/syslog.0:May 15 15:58:44 merguez NetworkManager[2062]: <info> [1778875124.9800] hostname: static hostname changed from (none) to "localhost"
/var/log/syslog.0:Jun 4 17:10:13 merguez NetworkManager[2029]: <info> [1780607413.9324] hostname: static hostname changed from (none) to "localhost"
/var/log/syslog.0:Jun 8 14:22:36 merguez NetworkManager[1992]: <info> [1780942956.6790] hostname: static hostname changed from (none) to "localhost"
/var/log/syslog.0:Jun 8 15:31:16 merguez NetworkManager[1982]: <info> [1780947076.9328] hostname: static hostname changed from (none) to "localhost"
/var/log/syslog.0:Jun 19 10:22:04 merguez NetworkManager[2247]: <info> [1781878924.8232] hostname: static hostname changed from (none) to "localhost"
/var/log/syslog.0:Jun 21 13:39:01 merguez NetworkManager[2027]: <info> [1782063542.0005] hostname: static hostname changed from (none) to "localhost"
/var/log/syslog.0:Jun 27 20:42:37 merguez NetworkManager[2228]: <info> [1782607357.8853] hostname: static hostname changed from (none) to "localhost"
/var/log/syslog.0:Jul 8 18:29:06 merguez NetworkManager[2051]: <info> [1783549746.1208] hostname: static hostname changed from (none) to "localhost"
/var/log/syslog.0:Jul 8 18:33:03 merguez NetworkManager[7510]: <info> [1783549983.6724] hostname: static hostname changed from (none) to "localhost"
/var/log/syslog.0:Jul 8 18:34:00 merguez NetworkManager[1960]: <info> [1783550040.8156] hostname: static hostname changed from (none) to "localhost"
/var/log/syslog.0:Jul 8 18:44:49 merguez NetworkManager[2036]: <info> [1783550689.9128] hostname: static hostname changed from (none) to "localhost"
/var/log/syslog.0:Jul 8 18:47:33 merguez NetworkManager[1974]: <info> [1783550853.7683] hostname: static hostname changed from (none) to "localhost"
/var/log/syslog.1.gz:Mar 26 12:55:06 merguez NetworkManager[2078]: <info> [1774544106.9472] hostname: static hostname changed from (none) to "localhost"
/var/log/syslog.1.gz:Apr 27 17:25:16 merguez NetworkManager[1998]: <info> [1777325116.8897] hostname: static hostname changed from (none) to "localhost"
/var/log/syslog.1.gz:May 4 16:43:30 merguez NetworkManager[2002]: <info> [1777927410.6758] hostname: static hostname changed from (none) to "localhost"
/var/log/syslog.1.gz:May 4 17:06:04 merguez NetworkManager[1977]: <info> [1777928764.7400] hostname: static hostname changed from (none) to "localhost"
/var/log/syslog.1.gz:May 5 19:58:40 merguez NetworkManager[1995]: <info> [1778025520.7352] hostname: static hostname changed from (none) to "localhost"
/var/log/syslog.3.gz:Oct 9 15:25:31 merguez NetworkManager[8586]: <info> [1760037931.7152] hostname: static hostname changed from (none) to "localhost"
/var/log/syslog.3.gz:Oct 13 20:48:04 merguez NetworkManager[3631]: <info> [1760402884.2840] hostname: static hostname changed from (none) to "localhost"
/var/log/syslog.3.gz:Oct 17 15:30:24 merguez NetworkManager[13794]: <info> [1760729424.0976] hostname: static hostname changed from (none) to "localhost"
/var/log/syslog.3.gz:Oct 17 15:49:31 merguez NetworkManager[15170]: <info> [1760730571.1947] hostname: static hostname changed from (none) to "localhost"
But I’ve never actually had the hostname change once OpenRC set it from
/etc/hostname until today! What?!
Clearly some combination of recent changes activated the same issues present in
that blog article, but symptoms had been around for a while. Notably, by
comparison with last | grep boot, I knew this wasn’t happening on every boot
up. How bizarre…
Finally, I stumbled on the Gentoo wiki for NetworkManager, which gives 2 options:
/etc/hostname to /etc/conf.d/hostname.Well, (2) is for the OpenRC script that’s been working successfully all this time anyway, so apply (1) and restart NetworkManager. Hoho, it’s no longer automatically touching the hostname!
Now, upgrade and restart: still viable. Ok, reboot?
Problems are gone… phew!
The fix looks like this in /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/hostname.conf:
[main]
plugins=keyfile
hostname-mode=none