First of all, let's rename it to read_etc_hostname(), to make clearer
what kind of configuration it actually reads: the file format defined in
/etc/hostname and nothing else.
Secondly: let's port this to use read_line(), i.e. the new way to read
lines from a file in a safe, bounded way.
Thirdly: let's strip leading/trailing whitespace from what we are
reading. Given that we are already pretty lenient what we read (comments
and empty lines), let's be permissive regarding whitespace too.
Fourthly: let's actually validate the hostname when reading it. So far
we tried to make it valid, but that's not always possible (for example,
we can't make an empty hostname valid, ever).