Debian Administration

I used to follow the relevant RFC (can't think of the number and my google-skills are weak today), and name my machines as part of sets.

In the past, as shown by the hostnames in my articles, this has included names such as "mice", "rats", "sun", "moon", "stars", & etc.

Nowadays I primarily use two desktop machines and they are named "vain.my.flat" and "yours.my.flat".

vain is a pun upon the name of a previous machine. At the time I had two machines "mine" and "yours". One being for me, and one being for my partner to use - so "mine" and "yours". When my previous machine was retired I figured the name could be intepreted in a mining context, so a vain (of ore) seemed like a fun name!

As it happens tomorrow I'll receive a new machine - and I've not yet chosen a name for that one.

Steve

I use names of Gods from the Greek mythology (Hera, Hestia, Hathor, Athena etc.) or Roman mythology (Venus, Netpune etc.) - most of the time, I choose them randomly from a list after googling.

Cheers,
Julien

I voted for fantasy word, but I'm changing to "like real persons name":

- the former (dial-up) router was named P100 until I debianized it (woody), then it became DebiaNiKa.
- my old trusty Athlon 1.33 is named "Athlonazo", it's the home router
- my current desktop is indistinctly named k8 or matias
- my brother's machine is a simple "x2" (dual-core athlon)
- my mom's desktop is anamaria, after her name

What just isn't cool is that I keep these names in every machine's hosts file... never made it work from the bind9 in the router.

I named them after Norse mythology.

Odin is my primary workstation, Ymer is a backup server, and Thor acts as a web- and mailserver.
Portables are named after animals: Ratatosk, Fenris, and Garm.
The gateway is (of course) called Bifrost.

I don't know what to call my printer ... yet (got it this xmas) ... Might end up as Draupner.

If I ever would be forced to use a window-thingy, it would end up as Ragnarok ... ;-)

Oh, I nearly forgot:
My two cats are called Tjalfe and Røskva. »o.o«

I am very inventive with my machines -- I use persons' names from hitchhiker ;-))

cb

At my previous job I named all the machines after beverages (mostly alcoholic). So the Sun box was "Corona", the DynaBase Server was "Boddingtons", my desktop were "Speckled Hen" and "Castle Eden" and so on. Everyone joined in, so everyone got to name their desktop after their favourite drink.

My home system at the time was simply called "Fred", because that's what my first computer - a Commodore 64 - was called. Since then my home network has expanded, so they all have animal names alternating in English and French. My home sever is "Herisson" (Hedgehog), my Sun box is "Badger", my old desktop "Marmot" my new desktop "Wombat" and so on.

At work "my" Linux systems are named after scientists, Turing, Pascal, Fermat, Shannon, Laplace and so on. The SAP/AIX systems actually have their function in their names - something a consultant we had once thought was a very bad idea. Most of the Windows kit has a coding made up of type, location, business unit and an arbitrary number.

It's a real pain trying to tell foobar12 and foobar13 apart, I find real words more useful, plus our consultant thought functional/location information in the name gave a hacker a lot of information once they've done a zone transfer.

A quick Google search suggests this is a popular topic...

http://namingschemes.com/

--
"It's Not Magic, It's Work"
Adam

The relevant RFC is 1178. For one job, the machines all have "cat" names, which after several dozen machines is starting to run out. There just aren't all that many species of cat. so now it's onto fictional/famous cats, and people's individual pets. Try asking around sometime: people give animals really odd names.

Another job has circus-themed names. One group i work with uses social justice activists and theorists. Another group uses classes of primates.

At home, most of my machines are named with vaguely pejorative names (in contradiction of the RFC), since they tend to give me more trouble (i usually experiment from home before deploying for work or volunteer gigs).

I'm amazed at the myopia and lack of inventiveness reflected by most corporate naming schemes i encounter. They're usually something like "XZR3220M4", which somehow is supposed to encode the room number, department, and outlet (if a wired network drop is used). Why they do this is a mystery to me, since relational databases (or even flat text files) would make this kind of lookup naturally easy, and would allow them to redistribute machines without having to worry about the hassle of a renaming. Even more importantly users and other admins are more likely to remember that a machine is named "gibbon" than "XZR3220M4". They'll also find it easier to pronounce, so you can actually talk with other humans about the machines without spitting out a mouthful of gibberish at each step.

At home, I use names that are vaguely descriptive of them. So I have screamer (which had a v. noisy fan on delivery) and silver (which is the mainly silver box). Can you guess why epia s called epia or why blacky is called blacky ?

My first ThinkPad is called stinky (which is short for stinkpad). My second is called smelly....

At work, we name after drinks (although there are CNAME entries based on function e.g. SMTP01, IMAP01, etc.). We have over 80 server hosts and so now we're starting to stretch, having raki, arak, pernod, ricard as examples. We have to be careful about some names because some people may spell them incorrectly: you wouldn't believe the debate over whether sambuca would be appropriate!

We have one Windows server which is for the Personnel System and which we gave what we believe to be an entirely appropriate name : SLOPS.

It is a Dell, so its proper name is "Derek".

I called a previous SUN machine named Icarus, and caused a supplier worry because they thought I "knew something". Turned out that was the root password on their SUN machines; a good name but a bad password.

at work, they are named after islands. I've got aruba, fiji, tahiti etc.

At home, it's horses names from LOTR. arod, snowmane, strider, etc..

phil

For personal use my machines are named after Hanna Barbera cartoon characters.

So my Bytemark VM is topcat, laptop is scooby, Media PC is Flinstone.

Did try to follow this naming convention when I started my new job, but instead had to name it ldc-sclark, ldc for Leeds Data Centre and sclark being my name.

Servers arn't named as badly as my last job though, they were in the format LiveNTXXX for Live Windows boxes and LiveUxXXX for Unix boxes.
When I left they were upto LiveNT250, that was a pain remembering which server did what.


Scott Clark
Leeds, UK.
www.scottclark.me.uk

You need a "functional name" option. I'm sure many businesses go by this.

Our servers: fileserver, emailserver, backupserver, firewall, webserver, etc.

Workstations: Either persons name if permanent employee, or room/desk location abbreviation if temp.

My home machines are named after old testament prophets. I manage quite a few machines at work so they're named after asteroids--an almost endless list.

I tend to go with moons for personal systems at home, so stuff like 'europa', 'aries' and 'umbriel' -- there's a pretty big list just for our solar system ;) Servers I own or rent are named after dog breeds, so I've got 'akita', 'spaniel', 'retriever', 'doberman' and a few others, this is also quite a big possible list.

At work we've been using birds for UML hosts, so 'sparrow' and 'condor', etc. Other hosts might have functional names though, it varies a bit.

I think whatever naming scheme you choose, you may lose track of what they all do - with powerful hardware at cheaper prices it's increasingly common for servers to have multiple purposes or even be virtualized using some technology or other.

Sets I have used in the past for various labs, nets, farms...
- Peanuts Characters (small lab 10-12)
- Audio Definitions
- Celestial Bodies (AKA Greek/Roman Gods/Demi-Gods)
- 1980's hack/crack/phreak handles

Currently in my home office I have...

My workstation which has been named Mentat for quite a long time through windows and several linux distributions. I named my notebook Phantom as a bit of a pun as it may be here or there or not available on the network at all... the other part of the pun I'll leave to imagination. My web server Luna operates in the closet stub of my home office network so a moon reference seemed very fitting. For breaking stuff I use my dual processor box which I have aptly named 'BOX'. To sum up my moving parts "computers", Mars is a pentium pro 200mhz I can't seem to let go of.

I have always used names from characters of Ranma 1/2 [1] anime series. Ranma has always been my laptop, and Kasumi my desktop PC. My main development server has always been Nabiki, and the rest of servers take random names from that context like Genma, Soun, and so on.

Now, in my new job, we are using cities from the Middle-East and Asia, like Alexandria, Bagdad, Cairo, and so on.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranma

--
Jaume Sabater
http://linuxsilo.net/

"Ubi sapientas ibi libertas"

I use the names of famous persons (of electrical engineering ;-))

I have ohm, watt, volta, maxwell, edison, lewis.

At work, it's rosebank, after the single malt whisky. There it is also part of a 'set'.

Dirk

They get 'proper' names, depending on where they are/which domain they're on (if there's an excuse to pun, I'll use it), and their function.

From spirits generally, to gins specifically, to things from Potter, to "amusing" parochial things, to political heros, to quintessentially 'british' things.

Machines with specific functions will get an appropriate name. It gets complicated for boxes which run Virtual machines, as they may sometimes be badly named, and where renaming would be a PITA.

I always name all of my computers after trees.

At one time I worked in a lab that used fruit names. This place had grown large and they were scraping the bottom of the barrel; mine was called "lucuma". WTF is a lucuma, I asked? Years later I was in a cafe in Lima, Peru, and noticed "Lucuma juice" on the drinks menu!!! I had to try it. It wasn't great. Apparently it is better as an ice-cream flavour.

I name my computer equipment after proper names (sort of). My main PC is called simply: Bob (I have a particular fondness for palindromes, Bob was also the name of a rather powerful PC [playable character] that frequented my childhood Dungeons and Dragons campaigns).

All other computers have a prefix in front of 'Bob' describing their purpose: Server-Bob, Micro-Bob (laptop), Pocket-Bob (personal phone), Busy-Bob (business phone), Keychain-Bob and Thumb-Bob (both portable flash drives).

The only exception to my 'Bob' fixation is the Linux router: Rotor-V2 (it beats the crud out of it's predecesor).

I use http://labs.google.com/sets/ to grow lists of names from a few seeds.

Specifically, the scheme I use is nouns of things with an abstract quality, such as clouds or spray.

I wonder why in this poll, there is no greek/roman goods, everybody knows that this is the best way to name pc's :)

Hmm, not using sets for the couple machines I have.

Main server, earlier primary workstation, current Linux WS, is called "sanctum" (that name stuck since at least early '97, maybe even late '96 on my first Linux (Debian of course) install)

The firewall/gateway/secondary(and underpowered) server is "guard", because, well, it's on guard duty (I almost named it guardian, and am still thinking about renaming it from time to time :D)

My (broken/out-of-service) laptops were called "satellite" and "wanderer".

This box is called "changeling". It is, sad though I am to admit it, primarily a Windows box. But can change (hence its name) into an Ubuntu box. :D

I mostly name my machines after drum producers
tama, pearl, mapex, sonor, dw, ...

At the office, our local machines are named after tornadoes that have swept across our area leaving behind destruction a chaos: opal, allison, gilbert, ivan.

Use to name them after jazz musicians. Now I just name them after either the model (eg: optiplex) or some obvious marking on the box itself (5MKAP sticker on latest server)

http://namingschemes.com/Seven_Deadly_Sins but I use the words from my mother tongue

I use (parts of) place names from middle earth for my domestic computers, gondolin, imladris, anor, ithil, earessa, lorien, and objects or creatures for mobile devices like shadowfax, palantir.

At work I use names that describe the server (foss for our free software development environment) or more usually names of scientists, newton, einstein etc.

Simply the 'localhost'.

Mine is named "debian" and that is so boring. Can I change it? :(

I use LOTR places names for desktops and servers (choosing appropriately, like "dagorlad" for a firewall) and LOTR persons names for laptops (again choosing appropriately, like "bilbo" for an old small laptop, "samwise" for not so old, but still small one, and "treebeard" for a huge 17" HP laptop, which has wood-like pattern on the lid).

geology for me...barchan, diatom, syncline and wadi.

I said "other", but maybe Mayberry counts as a fantasy world. Most of my debian machines at work are named after mayberry characters. It started with "goober" and went from there. Of course, I've got so many debian boxes now I'm running out of characters...

I used a naming scheme based on bird names trying to use appropriate names for the function of the computer...

So f.e. my home server is called albatros, because it is big, flies far, starts slowly and contains almost all services of the network.
My backup server is called owl, as it works over night.
My first client was eagle, and the second one is falcon.
The laptop is goose because it travels.
And my wifes computer is called duck, because she likes that kind of bird.

I use another naming scheme for the firewall, because that computer is visible on the internet so I do not want its name to reveal my naming scheme (you can call me paranoid ;)... It's called gate.

I am setting up a xen based server, so i will have to add new names, and I am thinking of:
- parrot - asterisk server
- pigeon - mail server
- peacock - webserver.

I'm still thinking of other names for DB, DNS, LDAP... Sure I'll find something suitable.

At home for many years I go with the emotion I want to feel when I interact the machine. I have had machines named pleasure, happiness, exuberance, joy, merriment, etc.

At work right now we use the names of peppers for our servers. (cobincho, paprika, bell, poblano, etc) It's a scheme I inherited. I like peppers, and given the right seed catalog website it'll be a while until I run out.

I name my desktop machines at work after fruit. I have plum, pear, mango, apple, etc.

Cheers,
Steven W. Black
Bloomington, Indiana, USA

My domain is "theforest" so each of my boxen go in the forest... spiderweb.theforest, otter.theforest, knot.theforest.

Of course my Virtual Machine server is called "grove" and the only exception is my mail server which I affectionately call "courier" (bet you can't guess why).

It all runs through bind9 on the local server with a VM running bind, dhcpd, and I even have a home-grown iptables firewall. It's a pretty sweet setup. I even have most of the PCs running off of static DHCP so I don't have to remember to give them the correct names... most of the OS installers when I upgrade pull it from DHCP.

I used to use Greek/Roman gods, but that seemd to be a bit overdone... so I changed it.

My private boxes are named by illnesses or diseases. First name given begins with A, next begins with B and so on. I find all the names from Wikipedia, there are pages listing diseases, for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_diseases_starting_with_A. Replace the last letter, and there's a big list to pick from.

Amaurosis is a router, now retired.
Balantidiasis is the new router (also DHCP and DNS).
Calciphylaxis is my workstation.
Dermatofibroma is my cell phone.
Ependymoma is my laptop.

I have two more computers (old stuff from work) which haven't been installed, so they are unnamed.

At work the Windows boxes are named by cartoon characters, and the Linux boxes by animals. Users really wondered what a hippopotamus had to do with an intranet site.

I have an ASRock motherboard, so i named it "debianrock" :P