MySQL Bugs: #55903: Documentation claims hostname variable is settable, but it is not

Bug #55903	Documentation claims hostname variable is settable, but it is not
Submitted:	11 Aug 2010 4:41	Modified:	18 Aug 2010 14:25
Reporter:	Trent Lloyd	Email Updates:
Status:	Closed	Impact on me:	None
Category:	MySQL Server: Documentation	Severity:	S3 (Non-critical)
Version:		OS:	Any
Assigned to:	Paul DuBois	CPU Architecture:	Any

Description:
5.0 and 5.1 documentation claims 'hostname' option is valid on the command line and in my.cnf, but it is not.

As best I can see it is hard set and not possible to customize at all.

How to repeat:
100811 12:37:36 [ERROR] ./bin/mysqld: unknown option '--hostname'

Suggested fix:
Correct the documentation to reflect this variable is not modifiable

This seems to apply to 'version' as well

I don't see where the manual says that hostname can be set on the command line.

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/server-system-variables.html#sysvar_hostname says:

"The server sets this variable to the server host name at startup."

In the list up the top, it claims Cmd-Line yes, Option file, yes

I also think a specific note should be added you cannot set the variable

Thank you for your bug report. This issue has been addressed in the documentation. The updated documentation will appear on our website shortly, and will be included in the next release of the relevant products.

The table is fixed now. This problem also affected several of the version_xxx system variables.