diff --git a/config/cfgroot/general-functions.pl b/config/cfgroot/general-functions.pl
index 9be1e7708..318be2c01 100644
--- a/config/cfgroot/general-functions.pl
+++ b/config/cfgroot/general-functions.pl
@@ -640,13 +640,9 @@ sub validhostname
 	if (length ($hostname) < 1 || length ($hostname) > 63) {
 		return 0;}
 	# Only valid characters are a-z, A-Z, 0-9 and -
-	if ($hostname !~ /^[a-zA-Z0-9-\s]*$/) {
-		return 0;}
-	# First character can only be a letter or a digit
-	if (substr ($hostname, 0, 1) !~ /^[a-zA-Z0-9]*$/) {
-		return 0;}
-	# Last character can only be a letter or a digit
-	if (substr ($hostname, -1, 1) !~ /^[a-zA-Z0-9]*$/) {
+	# First and last character can only be letter or decimal digit
+	# else letter, decimal digits and hyphen are allowed
+	if ($hostname !~ /^[a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9-]*[a-zA-Z0-9]$/) {
 		return 0;}
 	return 1;
 }