diff --git a/docs/source/config.rst b/docs/source/config.rst
index 02c0da5..f9eeada 100644
--- a/docs/source/config.rst
+++ b/docs/source/config.rst
@@ -11,7 +11,8 @@ File format
 **********************************
 
 
-The top level structure is a single dict with one ``"systems"`` key with a dict value, containing
+The top level structure is a single dict. Most of the content is in the ``"systems"`` key, which contains
+a dict value. The `"systems"` dict contains
 one key-value pair for each system. The key is the name of the system (used to select
 the system when evaluating the function).  See ``expyre.System`` docstring for full list. The
 value is a dict with the following keys:
@@ -26,6 +27,12 @@ value is a dict with the following keys:
 - ``"rundir"``: string for a path where the remote jobs should be run
 - ``"partitions"`` or ``"queues"``: dict with partitions/queues/node-type names as keys and dict of node properties as values.
 
+In addition, there is an optional `"remote_rundir_submit_hostname"` which overrides the hostname used
+when constructing the remote rundir, for use by people who run their scripts from different
+hostnames, e.g. multiple HPC login nodes. Because the hostname is embedded into the remote rundir, if the script run that submits
+the job and the script run that gathers the results are run on machines with different hostnames, the second
+run will look in a different remote rundir, and not find the remote rundir.
+
 ===========================
 Node property dict includes
 ===========================
diff --git a/expyre/config.py b/expyre/config.py
index e13567a..ca39b57 100644
--- a/expyre/config.py
+++ b/expyre/config.py
@@ -119,7 +119,8 @@ def init(root_dir, verbose=False):
         use_local_stage_dir = local_stage_dir.parent
     else:
         use_local_stage_dir = local_stage_dir
-    _rundir_extra = os.environ.get('HOSTNAME', 'unkownhost') + '-' + str(use_local_stage_dir).replace('/', '_')
+    hostname_use = _config_data.get('remote_rundir_submit_hostname', os.environ.get('HOSTNAME', 'unknown_host'))
+    _rundir_extra = hostname_use + '-' + str(use_local_stage_dir).replace('/', '_')
 
     systems = {}
     for _sys_name in _config_data['systems']: