Change WiFi Name?

[thek135]

Is there a way to change or view the WiFi Device name somewhere in the settings? I heard of a way to change it via a terminal emulator but I still need a way of finding out if it actually changed it. I tried seeing if my wireless router showed you a list of connected devices, but I couldn't see anything. I seem to remember something in the S7's Settings menu but since I upgraded my ROM I haven't been able to find it again. Any ideas?

 

[Jota]

In the Settings I suppose not.
There are some apps that allow to change the hostname (device name), you need to search in the Market.
But, as far as I know, they all use the same trick, that you can do by yourself using the terminal (as root):

echo MYNAME > /proc/sys/kernel/hostname

To see the change, type

uname -a

And, remember that not all the wi-fi routers gets - or displays - the names of the devices connected to them...

 

[pedro_]

Not sure what changing the hostname would achieve, the router does not have any way to obtain the client name, it just dishes out an ipaddress to a requesting client.
Unlike windows networking and Bluetooth comms, hosts never pass their friendly name to other peer devices.

Pete

Sent from my IDEOS S7 using Android Tablet Forum

 

[Jota]

Right, as I said, it depends on the router.
The dhcp client stack in Android is set to send a name to the server (in this case, the router) at hand-shake time.
But some routers never display that name.

UPDATE:
I just discovered that the trick above is NOT working on 2.2... it worked for me on 2.1, but it seems Froyo changed things...
Now my device is seen by my router as "android_(some hex string)".
After some quick googling, I found this works:

# setprop net.hostname MYNAME

then restart your wi-fi.

 

[thek135]

The changing the hostname deal was just so I had a way of remaining hidden on my school's network, and thank you, I've changed it successfully.

And Jota, I found if you type busybox hostname NAMEHERE you can change it that way on Froyo, provided you have root and busybox installed.

 

[pedro_]

Hi Jota

Afaik, the android_xxxxx string is NOT your hostname, this is the VCI (vendor client identifier) which will not change, it's always android_xxx where xxx is the client Mac address.

Your right in that some routers do not collect this data.

Pete

Sent from my IDEOS S7 using Android Tablet Forum

 

[MG00711]

Not sure what changing the hostname would achieve, the router does not have any way to obtain the client name, it just dishes out an ipaddress to a requesting client.
Unlike windows networking and Bluetooth comms, hosts never pass their friendly name to other peer devices.

Pete

Sent from my IDEOS S7 using Android Tablet Forum

This information is absolutly incorrect, almost all DHCP servers keep track of device names as well. When the connecting device negotiates the connection and requests an IP the device name is also sent, however, not all devices are capable of communicating the device name to the router correctly, which is in turn just ignored by the router. You seem to be confusing this with the concept of DNS Databases or Windows network mapping technologies.... And the purpose of changing your hostnames on a network is to have a consistent naming convention, or clearly labeling your devices, so that network intrusion becomes more transparent and easy to spot when looks at your DHCP table on the router... without waisting too much time..... Also, as a sidenote to remember, commercial routers typically do not keep track of hostnames in a normal routing table, however NAT Routers (IE Linksys Home Routers) have DHCP Servers built into them, along with other features which adds addition functionality.