Running more than one Umbrel - hostname issues

Support and Troubleshooting
1

Hi all!

I have been running an Umbrel Home for a while now, and use it exclusively for Bitcoin / Lightning / Jam.
Now I configured an old Raspi 4 with UmbrelOS with the intention to use it as a media server (Jellyfin et al).

Any chance to assign it a different hostname? Found an older post discussing this, but do not see any actual solution except accessing the Umbrels via IP address.

Annoyingly the automatic assignment of umbrel, umbrel-2 decided that my original Umbrel Home should now be umbrel-2, which messes up saved passwords in my browser etc.

Is there a setting in the meantime that I have overlooked, or another simple way to change the hostname without messing up too many things down the road? Or is this still considered a non-issue?

Help much appreciated.

2

Good evening, here is a short guide for your project:

  1. SSH into your Raspberry Pi: Use: ssh umbrel@umbrel.local or the IP address assigned to your new Umbrel.
  2. Type: cd .. (enter) and again cd.. (enter)
  3. Run the command: sudo nano /etc/hostname
  4. Replace the current hostname (likely umbrel or umbrel-2) with your desired new hostname, such as umbrel-media.
  5. Edit the hosts file: Open the file: sudo nano /etc/hosts
  6. Update any instances of umbrel or umbrel-2 to your new hostname, e.g., umbrel-media. Make sure to update the line that refers to 127.0.1.1.
  7. Reboot the Raspberry Pi: Save the changes (CTRL+O then CTRL+X in Nano), and then reboot: sudo reboot.

That should work. :slight_smile:

2 Likes
3

Hey, thanks for the detailed walkthrough!

I’ll give that a try and see if it causes hiccups with the intended use and applications!

Much appreciated! :pray:t2:

1 Like
4

You’re welcome! Let me know if it worked. :blush:

5

So far everything seems ok… :+1:

In an earlier thread someone mentioned that some of the apps have the original Umbrel hostname “hard coded” - will see if that is still true and if it affects the ones that I intend to run on this little thing…

I am currently de-googling and de-appleing my media, notes, photos, etc. management, and since I am just a “user” I appreciate solutions that are relatively easy to configure instead of building my own media server from scratch on distro xy…

6

That sounds like an exciting project! :sunglasses:

It’s true that some apps in Umbrel may still have the original hostname “umbrel” hardcoded. This could indeed cause problems, especially if you use them on your new setup. It would be good to keep this in mind while setting up your services.

1 Like
7

Brief update: no problems from the hostname solution denny suggested. :+1:

However after tinkering with Jellyfin plus the various *arr tools, transmission, jacket, etc… I came to the conclusion this is too complicated and fickle for me, I guess I prefer to maintain my media libraries manually…

…and since I like to run a few other low-traffic services (Ghost blog, Burn after Reading, etc.) on the same box as Jellyfin, I now went with StartOS for that particular Pi (which, btw., has a different approach and automatically uses unique host names)

1 Like