Why Do We Name Servers the Way We Do? 1397
jfruhlinger writes "If you use a Unix machine, it probably has a funny name. And if you work in an environment where there are multiple Unix machines, they probably have funny names that are variations on a theme. No, you're not the only one! This article explores the phenomenon, showing that even the CIA uses a whimsical server naming scheme." What are some of your best (worst?) naming schemes?
Slashdot (Score:5, Funny)
h t t p colon slash slash slash dot dot org
Re:Slashdot (Score:4, Interesting)
Well I think the reason for having a bunch of "Cute" names for the server is just really prevent confusion.
Oh Crap Medusa is down. vs. WebServer014 is down. We tend to relate better with recognizable names, so it creates a spot in the persons memory of all the systems, vs boring names where they will just become mixed in the fray.
In college over a decade ago, we had Greek Mythogy Names. And I still know what system is which by the name.
Morpheous and Ultra Sparc was the main file/web server
Zeus a 2 CPU ultra Sparc e250 was the remotelogin ssh/telnet server where the CS students did their work.
Then we had Valhalla and Pandora the Ultra Sparc 1 workstations...
It is actually quite effective memory tool. for the NT workstations we just had NT1 NT2.... I can't remember what order they were in or which one was different then the other.
Those names actually made administration much easier.
Re:Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
It does not bloody well make administration easier! If you have say X servers scattered over Y locations, it makes sense to call them:
(site)(os)(function)(number)
i.e.
sydwindb002
meaning sydney windows database 002
as opposed to tauron or frickin picon, or smurf (I'm not kidding you). Best of all though I've seen was server. Just server.
Serving what?? This was in a rack of 27 severs in total.
As a sysad, it shits me when people come up with 'cute' nonsensical names that have no consistency and aren't self explanatory. I mean, good software engineering principles dictate that you use meaningful variable names. Why not server names as well?
Re:Slashdot (Score:5, Informative)
I personally hate that naming scheme, it's confusing and produces long, hard to remember and typo-prone hostnames.
NS records exist for a reason. Your example could just as easily be:
windb002.syd
Since every Windows network (and that tends to be where I see domain names like that) is a real DNS domain, there's no reason you couldn't do this. This has the added benefit of being able to push a DNS search domain based on the location of the computer doing the DHCP request, then having certain hosts that are replicated in each area subdomain, for example a CMS or a DB. Does sydwindb002 replicate to nycwindb002? Have windb002.syd replicate to windb002.nyc (and vice versa) then let users just put in windb002, and traveling users will be able to automagically use the closest and probably fastest DB server.
Or, in the case of a CMS, have one top-level CMS that refers to local ones. Say you have cms.example.com and cms.xxx.example.com. Depending on your network location, typing in CMS will either take you to the top-level CMS or the local one, which might aggregate data from the top-level one.
Re:Slashdot (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Slashdot (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Slashdot (Score:5, Funny)
OMG, I just found my new naming convention. Thank you soooooo much! Brilliant, just freaking brilliant.
Please don't. Unless you want your boxes to go down a lot.
Re:Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
I've mostly found it a sign of a company's size/age/maturity as to how boring the server names are. Several places I've worked for started out with the admins coming up with their funny/cute/dorky naming schemes, only to eventually have server names be locked down in the name of STANDARDIZATION.
Then you have endless meetings to decide what should be the important components of a system name. Should it indicate the machine's location? It's OS? It's function? Should it even indicate which rack number and elevation slot the system is in? Eventually you end up with racks full of servers named SJC-LX-APPDEV01, NYC-SV-EXCHG02, and LDN-UX-SMTPDR01.
I have to admit, a little part of me misses having room for a little creativity in naming systems, but then the rest of me doesn't miss wasting time trying to come up with names for work systems. I've always got my home network to label with my ever-changing nerdly obsessions.
Re:Slashdot (Score:4, Insightful)
You're quite right, and not just about servers. I've been at companies where every printer had its own cute name. And these weren't small companies with a couple of printers, we're talking dozens of them. A real nuisance when your regular printer is broken and you can't remember the name of one of the alternates.
I came back to work at one of these companies, and now all the printers have boring names based on where they are. Makes life much easier.
Re:Why... (Score:5, Insightful)
God save us from armchair psychologists!
Although it may be healthy to project personalities onto things (I'm a little skeptical, though I could maybe be persuaded by somebody who doesn't go around making sweeping psychiatric diagnoses of people he's never met) that hardly justifies encoding those projections into names. I'm not saying you should never do it (in fact, I do it a lot) but when you do it, be practical. Others may not share your projections. They may find your names confusing, misleading, or even offensive.
Where I work, there are two products that are very similar, but not quite. Somebody in engineering decided that their internal code names should be after a comic book hero and his evil twin. Those of us who don't follow comic books don't find these names very mnemonic, and often get them confused.
You're wondering why I don't tell you these two comic book characters. Can't, because they're for internal use only. If it became widely known that these products had these code names, somebody with a similar product with a similar name could sue us for trademark infringement. (The official product names combine trademarks we've already established with meaningless strings of letters and numbers.) That's another problem with these cute names: get careless and you get sued. Apple actually spends a lot of money paying off people with claims against the names they use for all their OS updates. Possibly worth it, since it contributes to their main marketing asset: their coolness factor. But not worth it for most companies.
And then there are names that just carry the cute reference bit too far. I mean, come on, whose idea was it to name a Linux distro "Yggdrasil"?
Re:Why... (Score:5, Insightful)
Although it may be healthy to project personalities onto things (I'm a little skeptical, though I could maybe be persuaded by somebody who doesn't go around making sweeping psychiatric diagnoses of people he's never met) that hardly justifies encoding those projections into names.
There's a simple, practical reason for using names: IP addresses can be hard to remember.
There's a simple, practical reason for using "themed" name spaces: coming up with dozens/hundreds of names can be hard.
Re:Why... (Score:5, Interesting)
Not only that, but names can help you remember which server is for what purpose. My four computers at one employer were 'Sadism', 'Masochism', 'Bondage' and 'Discipline'. I got away with that for nearly half a year before my team leader noticed. Anyway, Bondage was for all my admin stuff, emails, etc. Discipline was my test rig. Masochism my build scripts, et al. Sadism actual development. I was stretching the definitions a fair bit for some of those, but it did make sense to me. And was no suprise at all to those who knew me.
Re:Why... (Score:5, Funny)
Although it may be healthy to project personalities onto things (I'm a little skeptical, though I could maybe be persuaded by somebody who doesn't go around making sweeping psychiatric diagnoses of people he's never met) that hardly justifies encoding those projections into names.
My printer wastes my time, money, and annoys the hell out of me without ever really doing any work - so I named it after my ex-girlfriend.
Re:Why... (Score:4, Funny)
Here at the (anonymous) clinic we give our servers the name of disorders and conditions.
Guess which server had RAM problems?
Emphysema suddenly shutdown one day when its fan locked-up and overheated.
All MS servers have names of various cancers. Macabre yes, but it keeps them from spreading.
Our IT staff sounds quite impressive to the MDs when they're chatting in the cafeteria.
Psychoanalyze that!
Re:Slashdot (Score:4, Funny)
Got to be careful with this. It only takes an extension and a few more meeting rooms before you are asking people to meet in the Cradle of Filth.
I use names of past lovers... (Score:5, Funny)
First server was nobody, followed by righty, lefty, and fleshlight.
Next up is fido.
What? I just need an echomail gateway.
Snow White Theme (Score:5, Funny)
Old Reader's Digest Joke:
Seven terminals named Doc, Happy, Sleepy, Grumpy, . . ., and a printer named "Handsome Prints". :-)
Re:Gomco, Mogen, Plastibell. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Gomco, Mogen, Plastibell. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Gomco, Mogen, Plastibell. (Score:5, Funny)
Chop the whole thing off and I'm sure you could get even more of a reduction.
Re:Not religious freedom, but.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's an analogy... it's like they altered your eyes to make you see in black and white; and someone says you could have a "more intense" vision. Not ever knowing color, you can only imagine that as increased brightness. And you think, no, I don't need more brightness.
But it's not just more of what you know. It's something you don't know at all.
Well, I'm currently using Fwiffo. (Score:4, Funny)
My main server (which used to break all the time) is named Ultron, while various other computers and printers on the network have names such as Zebranki, Greenish, and Spathi.
Re:Well, I'm currently using Fwiffo. (Score:5, Interesting)
Personally, I like MrDomainController, MrNameServer, MrFileServer, etc. Have a backup? Meet MsDomainController. Need yet another backup? JrDomainController? Need another one? No you don't. See, easy, unambiguous, useful.
Re:Well, I'm currently using Fwiffo. (Score:5, Insightful)
We had this exact problem. Originally they were all named Webserver1,Webserver2,Monitoring1,Monitoring2 etc etc etc. We decided it would be cool to name them all after simpsons characters. 3 Days later I get an alert to my phone at 2am to tell me Nelson is not responding to ping. WTF is Nelson? Is he important? No idea what he did, and if he needed rebooting immediately or could wait till reasonable hours.
Hence I'm a big proponent for a useful naming scheme.
Re:Well, I'm currently using Fwiffo. (Score:4, Insightful)
We had this exact problem. Originally they were all named Webserver1,Webserver2,Monitoring1,Monitoring2 etc etc etc. We decided it would be cool to name them all after simpsons characters. 3 Days later I get an alert to my phone at 2am to tell me Nelson is not responding to ping. WTF is Nelson? Is he important? No idea what he did, and if he needed rebooting immediately or could wait till reasonable hours.
Hence I'm a big proponent for a useful naming scheme.
Yeah--that's even been a problem at the company I work for. Several times per week I end up in a conversation like this:
Me: "I can't connect to 192.168.7.241--it's out of admin slots for remote desktop" Boss: "What's 192.168.7.241? Is that DumbServerName1?" Me: "I'm not sure, what's 'DumbServerName1'?" Boss: 'It's the domain controller." Me: "Great, that still doesn't help."
I usually know everything by IP or it's DNS name. Where 192.168.7.241 might be 'mail.somedomain.com' but the box has a hostname of DumbServerName1
Lame.
Re:Well, I'm currently using Fwiffo. (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh and their names?
Moiraine
Berelain
etc...
Re:Well, I'm currently using Fwiffo. (Score:5, Funny)
Nelson is not responding to ping
*Points* Haaa-haaa.
Re:Well, I'm currently using Fwiffo. (Score:5, Funny)
Saves a fortune in tattoo removal.
Re:Well, I'm currently using Fwiffo. (Score:5, Funny)
No that should be Zathrus, Zathrus, Zathrus, Zathrus, Zathrus, Zathrus, Zathrus, Zathrus, Zathrus and Zathrus.
Oops, sorry, Zathrus isn't there any more.
D-d-d-dupe (Score:5, Funny)
Wines, cheeses, trees (Score:5, Insightful)
A goofy naming scheme is a bad idea when you're running over 100 servers in a dynamic environment. When your servers are named after wines, cheeses, and trees, who can say what Oak does, or Chablis, or Feta, or Jujuba, or Sassafras, ad nauseum.
-r0
Re:Wines, cheeses, trees (Score:5, Funny)
Well, not sure about where you are, but around here, adnauseum is the mail server.
Re:Wines, cheeses, trees (Score:4, Insightful)
A goofy naming scheme is a bad idea when you're running over 100 servers in a dynamic environment. When your servers are named after wines, cheeses, and trees, who can say what Oak does, or Chablis, or Feta, or Jujuba, or Sassafras, ad nauseum.
Well, the wines are build servers, the cheeses are webserver backends, and the trees are infrastructures... lol, sorry, being a bitch is so fun sometimes.
I did work at a job where we used acronyms to know what the computer was assigned for, but once you got past all of that, there was just a number for your team, and project. "Uh... which computer builds the x86fre version? 6? Oh, ok..." It required a map that was not just computer readable, but human readable.
Usually, it just ended up being team-specific knowledge that no one else knew. It was easy enough to know the prefix down to your stuff, it was regular, which just required a simple arbitrary map of numbers to purpose... what would be the difference between that and cheeses, wines, or trees?
"Goofy" naming scheme? (Score:5, Funny)
Great idea! Let's name the others "Mickey", "Minnie", and "Pluto"
Re:"Goofy" naming scheme? (Score:5, Funny)
"Urballs", "Urpenis", "Urnavel"...
Re:Wines, cheeses, trees (Score:5, Insightful)
Duh, you don't refer to the servers by name directly, it's just a name.
Use CNAME with functionality pointing to that server. Naming a server "www" is just silly when it also does other stuff.
Naming the server "Hezbollah" and having a bunch of cnames point to it ensures you can easily move a service at any later time without having to rename the server.
Re:Wines, cheeses, trees (Score:5, Insightful)
Quite correct - someone please mod this up. The extra layer of abstraction you get by using CNAME records in your DNS really helps. A server's "real" name should not be the name of it's functional role.
Re:Wines, cheeses, trees (Score:4, Insightful)
Quite correct - someone please mod this up. The extra layer of abstraction you get by using CNAME records in your DNS really helps. A server's "real" name should not be the name of it's functional role.
Pretend for just one moment that your network guy got clocked by a bus. He won't be back to work until someone figures out a way to raise the dead.
You're the new guy they just hired to replace him. Who cares about CNAMEs when you're on the server looking at the hostname? Someone tells you 'daffy' and 'kirk' are down. What are they? What do they do?
On the other hand, if I told you 'mx2' and 'nas1' are down, you have a better idea of what you're dealing with... Forget that there's a CNAME from mail to daffy and a CNAME from p0rnserver to nas1.
Re:Wines, cheeses, trees (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, if I told you 'mx2' and 'nas1' are down, you have a better idea of what you're dealing with... Forget that there's a CNAME from mail to daffy and a CNAME from p0rnserver to nas1.
Until someone decides to retire mx2, move functionality from nas1 to a new server named nas2, and make use of the old mx2 as the mail server.
Now you have nas1 and nas2. One's a mail server. You get to guess which one. But hey if you think you REALLY know better than the RFC, it's your network to run.
Re:Wines, cheeses, trees (Score:4, Insightful)
1.) Use TXT records in the DNS to give people who come behind you a clue.
2.) The first thing you should be doing when you get a new network admin position is digging around in the DNS server a bit to get the lay of the land and pay attention to CNAME records.
3.) The next thing I usually do is run nmap on the subnet to see what's open where.
4.) Usually someone will have at least a slight clue. Usually.... Ask around.
5.) If the dude wasn't a complete incompetent dumbass, he would have left some documentation. I document my networks extremely thoroughly and have an NMS set up which will have extensive text information on hosts as well. I also make sure a couple of key personnel have passwords to the NMS. I even have a binder labeled in big letters with a sharpie on the bookshelf "READ ME IF KEVIN DIES IN TRAGIC CAR ACCIDENT". Not kidding.
If you don't have thorough documentation, this is not a form of job security. You are not special. Someone can and will ensure they survive without you. Or they'll simply reinvent the wheel. All you're doing is being a dick to your fellow IT brethren.
If all of the above fail, chances are you'll need to recreate the network in your own image anyway. They don't teach how to write good documentation in MCSE study guides. There's a reason I refer to the MCSE cert as "Must Call Somebody Experienced".
Re:Wines, cheeses, trees (Score:5, Funny)
Naming the server "Hezbollah" and having a bunch of cnames point to it ensures you can easily move a service at any later time without having to rename the server.
Right. It also means that if there's a horrible disk crash, the FBI and NSA no doubt have several nice backup copies from last Friday you can borrow.
Re:Wines, cheeses, trees (Score:5, Funny)
If obscurity is not a chief objective you could latinize the server's functions. Mailicus, Proxius, Validicus etc..
Add in some major/minor modifiers and you are in business.
Re:Wines, cheeses, trees (Score:5, Interesting)
A little extra work for us, but we have ways internally of handling this issue without much headache.
Re:Wines, cheeses, trees (Score:5, Funny)
A little extra work for us, but we have ways internally of handling this issue without much headache.
If your going for obscurity I'd go the other way... give some old pentium 1 with a copy of tradewars2000 in a closet the name 'auth-pay-master', and the your main server something like 'help-desk-print-server' ;)
Re:Wines, cheeses, trees (Score:4, Insightful)
Conversely, your admins are going to take a productivity hit every time they have to do anything to more than one box. Even a small headache gets annoying when you have to deal with it multiple times every day.
Re:Wines, cheeses, trees (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Wines, cheeses, trees (Score:5, Funny)
Rebel (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Rebel (Score:4, Interesting)
mod this one up!
I remember the first computer I networked I changed so it showed up as H3110 (Hello) ... since they insisted on numbers.
mac addresses (Score:5, Funny)
Worst naming scheme: (Score:5, Interesting)
functional naming.
Machines need arbitrary names, functional names are aliases.
Re:Worst naming scheme: (Score:5, Funny)
Porn stars (Score:5, Funny)
I used to run a fairly lucrative business at a time when a certain industry was much more profitable... JennaJameson would always go down while RonJeremy would always be up.
Coincidence? I think not.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Break it down (Score:5, Interesting)
And a server that serves more than 1 role? or if you're trying to fit names into a small namespace? Or you ever have to pass the name over the phone to a colleague?
Snow (Score:5, Insightful)
Just like my user name, I decided to go with the word "snow" in various languages. So far, I have my router chioni, server nix, desktop losse, and various other names for components. My wii is yuki, my xbox 360 is xue, my ipod touch is lumi. Beyond that I've also used "eira" and "schnee".
At my university NMSU, the CS department used alcoholic drinks (vodka, gin, etc), which were changed to vehicles (cobra, stingray) over complaints from an incoming professor. The sunrays were "bear" in various languages (oso, medved, ursa), and later they had words from the hacker's dictionary (foo, bar, baz, frob)
The naming schemes all were easily memorable, and prompted word associations, making them easy to mentally group. Ok, except the translations for bears, (and mine for snow) except for fellow crazy polyglots, and linguiphiles.
Re:Snow (Score:5, Funny)
If your wii is yuki, you might want to see a doctor!
Diseases (Score:3, Interesting)
I worked with some guys who brought up a cluster of machines named with disease names. I think one was 'schistosomiasis' (not sure of the spelling)
The users didn't like the idea of logging into diseases and something else was eventually put in place.
Never owned a server, but... (Score:5, Funny)
I had a series of Macs before I became a diehard Linux guy. I didn't know I could name the first one, but then came Mac and Cheese, Mac Truck and Fanfare for the Common Mac (around the time of Copeland).
Why? Because I could.
My nonsensical method (Score:3, Funny)
My desktop is "Agena" (Phenom X4)
Laptop is "Trinidad" (Turion X2)
Wife's Laptop is "Merom" (Celly)
File Server is "Sparta" (AM2 Sempron)
I've been doing this for years and it's a built in reminder that I need to upgrade whenever I connect to another machine.
Logical names fail eventually (Score:5, Insightful)
Over time, systems get refactored for uses that they were not originally intended, so that box named web1 is now an ftp server and nobody bothered to rename it. The same happens when you try to name them by physical location. r1a2r10n5 got moved from Room 1, Aisle 2, Rack 10, Number 5 to another room entirely.
The easiest time I had dealig with servers was when they were named after japanese monsters. We had Godzilla, Mothra, etc. We all know that Godzilla was the PostresSQL server. If a box's purpose changed, we didn't have to worry about renaming it and people would eventually learn its new purpose.
Whimsical names work.
JPMorgan's servers named after Dead Utopians (Score:3, Interesting)
One group at JPMorgan had unix boxes named "Marx" (yes after Carl Marx) and "Bucky" (yes after Buckminster Fuller), and a slew of other Dead Utopian Philosophers.
Naturally the program that the group developed (in Visual Works Smalltalk with the Gemstone Object Database) for Trading Hybrid Derivatives is known as "Das Kapital"! Yes, it also has a start up screen with a picture of good old Carl Marx. This program trades and manages Trillions of Dollars of value (although the total value dropped recently due to, well, you know). But, was this program was likely part of the problem? Who knows? ;--)
Apparently odd naming often has a purpose (Score:4, Insightful)
Odd named hosts often have a meaning once you are clued in on the naming scheme. First off it really helps to give hosts on the network a NAME not just a number. You could just skip DNS if you are going to number em. A well thought out naming scheme helps. If you do it right the name gives you a rough idea what it does and still allows some fun in naming.
If I see a tree themed hostname I instantly know it is one of the machines in a patron lab. Flowers are staff hosts and mythological beings are in the server room. Yes machines in a lab could just be numbered but ya could also name yer cats Cat 1, Cat 2, Cat 3, etc.
Re:Apparently odd naming often has a purpose (Score:5, Funny)
Server names (Score:3, Interesting)
I name mine after logicians. My desktop is Aristotle and my laptop is Ockham. I have also had Frege and Boole.
Re:Server names (Score:5, Funny)
Thus, if you tether your Motorola cell phone to your laptop, you end up with Ockham's RAZR.
Dell Service Tags (Score:3, Interesting)
Surnames (Score:5, Funny)
All my computers are named after famous computerists. For example, Welchman. Turing. Babbage. (The exception is my old laptop, named after Richard Hammond.)
My phones are also given surnames: Stubblefield, Adams, etc.
All my iPods are called Steve.
The story's server has a funny name, too (Score:3, Funny)
Lots of good ones on Stack Overflow (Score:5, Informative)
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/262657/the-coolest-server-names [stackoverflow.com]
You name them after computer parts (Score:5, Funny)
Names I have known (Score:3, Interesting)
The first naming scheme I saw was a group of then-new Sun 3 workstations that were named after cheeses. The NFS server was chedder. How creative!
Where I currently work, the names are cars. I've had twingo, tatra and model-t, while our new wickedly fast server was, naturally, veyron. The system I'm typing this on is a little crude but brutally fast: monaro.
Going a very long way back, when I was with Digital the DECnet node names were limited to 6 characters, but some of them were interesting. The main box at an office in Arizona was TOOHOT. GATORS? Florida, naturally. How could SRFSUP be anywhere but L.A.?
...laura
Whimsical Conference room names (Score:5, Funny)
Ok, this drives me nuts. It's a little off topic, since it's names of conference rooms instead of server names, but the concept is the same.
Here in Colorado, we have 54 mountain peaks that are > 14,000 feet. They're referred to as "fourteeners," and they all (of course) have names.
Every company in Denver thinks they're damn clever by naming their conference rooms after the fourteeners. I don't know how many Long's Peak and Mount Evans conference rooms I've sat in, but it makes me want to hurl my chair at the window.
Ok, time for my anger management class. =p
Why just "Unix"? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why would this be limited to just Unix boxes? I've seen plenty of windows, mac, linux, etc network servers with the same kind of strange naming conventions.
Why? Because we can! (Score:3, Interesting)
And we name our Win boxen silly names too - every Linux or Unix or Windows box in my lab is named after a local animal (Linux or Unix) or local plant (Windows).
It's the same reason that people have nicknames for their campers and their houses ... or the CIA is named Foggy Bottom.
I know a name for itworlds new mysql server (Score:5, Funny)
rfc 1178: Choosing a Name for Your Computer (Score:3, Informative)
I can suggest reading rfc1178 (http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1178).
It contains some common-sense advice about host naming. Here's a sample:
I'm so far successfully naming my boxes after moons in the solar system. Pro: you can think of the boxes as A, B, C, etc., but let them have more interesting names than that.
Anime characters should be fine too. Usagi, Chiyo-Chan, Sakura, ... :D
Or you could go for slashdot memes... natalie-portman, cowboyneal, in-soviet-russia, car-analogy, etc... ;-)
Pants are down (Score:5, Funny)
from rfc2100 (Score:5, Interesting)
(ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2100.txt)
The Naming of Hosts is a difficult matter,
It isn't just one of your holiday games;
You may think at first I'm as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a host must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.
First of all, there's the name that the users use daily,
Such as venus, athena, and cisco, and ames,
Such as titan or sirius, hobbes or europa--
All of them sensible everyday names.
There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter,
Some for the web pages, some for the flames:
Such as mercury, phoenix, orion, and charon--
But all of them sensible everyday names.
But I tell you, a host needs a name that's particular,
A name that's peculiar, and more dignified,
Else how can it keep its home page perpendicular,
And spread out its data, send pages world wide?
Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum,
Like lothlorien, pothole, or kobyashi-maru,
Such as pearly-gates.vatican, or else diplomatic-
Names that never belong to more than one host.
But above and beyond there's still one name left over,
And that is the name that you never will guess;
The name that no human research can discover--
But THE NAMESERVER KNOWS, and will us'ually confess.
When you notice a client in rapt meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
The code is engaged in a deep consultation
On the address, the address, the address of its name:
It's ineffable,
effable,
Effanineffable,
Deep and inscrutable,
singular
Name.
Bad names for test servers (Score:3, Funny)
I got in trouble for following the despair.com naming scheme for our test servers:
failure ...
crash
burnout
apathy
mistake
stupidity
I thought the test reports were entertaining. Management not so much.
Futurama Naming Scheme (Score:4, Funny)
My laptop: Fry
Wife's: Leela
Wife's old laptop: Amy
Printer: Zoidberg (dispenses ink)
Router: Bender ("bends" packets)
OLPC XO Laptop: Kiff (both small and green)
Car: Planet Express Ship (with which the 2006 Honda Civic [rediff.com] shares a striking resemblance)
Cat: Zapp (cavalier, not too bright, doesn't wear pants).
I've been told by wifie that future pet names will include "Nibbler" and "Scruffy".
I've got a system (Score:4, Interesting)
My PCs are all named after Studio Ghibli heroines. I first used this with San (retroactively naming her predecessors Ichi and Ni), then with Chihiro and now with Shizuku. Both of the last two are still operating, and will be replaced with Haru and Taeko respectively. This doesn't factor much into operations, though the command line does display "rhapsody@shizuku" on this PC.
Periodic Table (Score:3, Interesting)
Has enough for a good size network, and there is enough other information available and known. For example you can make a range of computers and the services based on element type, class, etc. Make the noble gasses firewalls, and the metals servers for example.
Re:Periodic Table (Score:4, Funny)
Don't forget the most important part: the host part of the IP address should be the element's atomic number (e.g., "Einsteinium" -> 192.168.0.99).
Yay for colours! (Score:5, Interesting)
For smaller setups with less than ten machines, I like to use colours.
Red - Production Server
Orange - Staging Server
Yellow - Test Server
Green - Dev Server
Blue/Purple/etc etc for other things like the database server etc.
This way, when I'm setting up PuTTY or another shell, I can set the foreground text colour for each machine to match the server name, which stops most of those embarrassing mistakes when you run a command on production that you meant to run on test, and so on.
Re:Yay for colours! (Score:4, Funny)
Let's just say the Dallas server... (Score:5, Funny)
Man-made disasters (Score:4, Funny)
ThreeMile, Valdez, Congress, HyattKC, PruitIgoe (ok, a little local, look it up). Damn, there were more, but I can't remember them anymore.
Whoops (Score:5, Funny)
Medical Conditions (Score:5, Funny)
Oh man ... (Score:4, Funny)
You can name servers? And here I was memorizing IPs ...
Re:Artificial Intelligences (Score:5, Funny)
...but I later decided on naming them after AIs.
Roker?
Jolsen?
Sharpton?
Yankovic?
Gore?
Oh, wait...
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:naming (Score:5, Funny)
...and period3 means that you're 12 years old and just started puberty?
I agree (Score:3, Funny)
Yes, I name my servers after mythological beings, too.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
What is this "females" of which you speak?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And for the same reason that we name the variable total_annual_cost instead of c113, i
Re:Idiots... (Score:5, Insightful)
Depends. Functional naming conventions often try to name servers according to some crazy attempt to fully qualify the server name. It'd be like naming your variables like I have seen in some VB programs (stupid Hungarian notation!)
I have worked in places where servers are given functional names, and places where servers are named in a more whimsical fashion. Functional names suck.
Even "meaningful" names lose meaning over time, due to changes in naming conventions, repurposing of hardware, or other unforeseen things. Might as well give them whimsical names which relate to one another, yet aren't dependent on the implementation details. Servers are named for human reference, else they'd be IP addresses.
Then, a new director or new group handles server allocation. The naming convention changes and you have to remember yet another arcane naming system.
Again, functional names are cumbersome and hard to remember. And you often have to type server names over and over again. It's easier to remember names like sleepy, grumpy, and dopey than to remember and constantly retype TXDALDC09DEV01, TXDALDC03DEVDB01, and CASFDC06QADB11.
If you just hate whimsical names, then at least serialize the server names. Server01, Server02, and Server03 is a better way to go than coming up with some complex system of fully qualified names.
Re:Idiots... (Score:5, Insightful)
By your logic, I can name all the variables in my code "x", "y", and "z" and then complain that they've hired *idiots* who can't remember that "x means the number of items in the shopping cart, duh". I could claim it's just a rite of passage into the world of complex software development...
Re:The Simpsons (Score:5, Funny)
We had a Simpsons fan where I used to work, When our engineering groups got our first workstations, he named his 'homer' and suggested that we follow suit. We named ours 'ulysses'.