topic Re: Shortened Hostnames as variables in Alerting

Shortened Hostnames as variables

i_g — Fri, 31 Oct 2025 07:17:04 GMT

Hello all. Using advice from this post:
https://community.dynatrace.com/t5/Open-Q-A/Custom-Host-Names-Remove-FQDN/m-p/188561
I've shortened all of our hostnames down and it worked really quite well. However, my main driver for this was removing the FQDN from alerts that end up in ServiceNow, and that continues to occur.

I'm currently using {host.name} in the Event Template title in Events Extraction, but I'm noticing that {hostname} and {host.hostname} do not fill and remain as such in the Problem when it generates. Unsure if this is related.

Is there a way to get the shortened hostname into a variable for these fields please?

Re: Shortened Hostnames as variables

p_devulapalli — Fri, 31 Oct 2025 01:13:57 GMT

@i_g Can you please try the {dt.entity.host} parameter in the event template instead?

Re: Shortened Hostnames as variables

i_g — Fri, 31 Oct 2025 01:23:58 GMT

Hi mate. That just returned HOST-[identifierstring] 😞

Re: Shortened Hostnames as variables

p_devulapalli — Fri, 31 Oct 2025 05:40:58 GMT

@i_g Sorry, you are right, but interestingly when you look at the dt.event.title in the event details on the host it does show the updated name but this does not get passed on to the problem 😄

Re: Shortened Hostnames as variables

t_pawlak — Fri, 31 Oct 2025 18:45:34 GMT

Hi,
you can try use custom metadata/kubernetes annotation.
I mean you have two option:

in Kubernetes: add an annotation to pod with the short name, e.g., short-hostname=web01 (on the node/pod—wherever you want to read it). Dynatrace ingests such metadata, so you can reference it in tags/naming rules

In Non-K8s hosts: set custom host metadata/tag via OneAgent, e.g.
oneagentctl --set-host-property ShortHostname=web01 (or a tag ShortHostname=web01).
Then use that metadata (e.g., {ShortHostname}) in your naming/template instead of {host.name}.

Second option is transform {host.name} with a regex. You already send this example

Re: Shortened Hostnames as variables

i_g — Mon, 01 Dec 2025 00:19:25 GMT

Hi mate. I missed this reply, apologies. Setting the host property using oneagentctl worked perfectly, I just gave it a test now. Thank you!