erlang how to fix "Can't set long node name"

For this post, my platform is Ubuntu 10.10

# Start up an erlang node with a long name as follows:
erl -name mynode


# This results in a long stack trace from erlang and the first line says:
{error_logger,{{2011,9,16},{18,1,5}},"Can't set long node name!\nPlease check your configuration\n",[]}

# The problem is the way your hostname is set. e.g.

philip@myserver:$ hostname
myserver

# now you can do
sudo hostname myserver.mydomainname.com

#next time you enter hostname you should get
myserver.mydomainname.com


# In order to make this permanent, you need to edit your /etc/hostname file and change the hostname from
myserver

# to be something like
myserver.mydomainname.com



# and now you can start the erlang node
philip@myserver:$ erl -name mynode
Erlang R13B03 (erts-5.7.4) [source] [smp:4:4] [rq:4] [async-threads:0] [hipe] [kernel-poll:false]

Eshell V5.7.4  (abort with ^G)
(mynode@myserver.mydomainname.com)1>