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Server Naming Conventions?
The reader continues:
"Here's a few ideas we've been tossing around, using Joe's Deli as an example:
- [four letter "name"][two letter service type][2 numbers]
eg) jdelwb03.domain.com
+ easy to determine the function and name
- hard to remember and pronounce, once you run out of four
character servers, determining the name and function will be
difficult. Joe's Deli and John's Delivery will have conflicting
names
- [random combination of numbers and letters]
eg) ak1jop3d.domain.com
+ none really
- confusing.. really confusing. Can you imagine saying to someone
"log on to alpha kappa one john omikron peter three delta?"
- [theme based name]
name servers based on a theme, eg Gundam
eg) zaku.domain.com, gelgoog.domain.com
+ easily identifiable - all Gundam names belong to Joe's Deli,
easy to pronounce and remember
- hard for a new tech or management (why would they need to know?)
to associate to a server
"I'd like to know what others in the tech community use for server naming policies when planning large scale data centres. Also, with data centres located nationally, does the naming convention pose any problems? Thanks."
RFC 1178, Choosing a Name for Your Computer
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If you ever change your mailserver to norm from cliff, you'll break a lot of the older mailling list subscriptions your customers may have.
The LIRR homepage is http://www.mta.nyc.ny.us/lirr/. The LIRR is run by the MTA, which is located in NYC, which is a city in NY, which is located in the US. Perfect scheme, and a suprisingly decent application of DNS. Especially for government.
So why suffer with jdeli342.domain.com? Why not a.jdeli.domain.com, b.jdeli.domain.com, etc? In addition to allowing for easier delegation of services, you can set search orders in /etc/resolv.conf so you can simply type ``ssh b'' to hop from host a to host b. That's just golden.
Some other examples..
Mail Exchangers
Nameservers
Web servers
And so on. If you get to z, make the next one aa, and then ab, etc.
Also, functional names should not replace cute names. DNS allows you to assign more than one name to a machine. If a machine is repurposed for another ask, it should still be known by its unique cute name no matter where it goes. At the same time, a single host can have more than one functional name.
No reason barney.domain.com can't also be bc.web.domain.com and e.porn.domain.com. :)
A source of cute names? Oh, uhm, right now I use Roman empererors. There were tons of them.
I strongly recommend that you investigate the UN Locode standard at www.unece.org/locode/.
This standard uses ISO standard two letter codes for countries and three letter codes for cities/provinces. Using these locodes can help remove some of the ambiguity of place abbreviations that you might make yourself. It also helps if you have to name systems deployed internationally because individuals usually aren't familiar with locations in too many countries.
You're not supposed to have CNAMEs as MX records.
314-15-9265
I have that at home. I thought I was clever too. Now to buy more PC's to use up all the names...
I made a list of elements with their atomic number, their two-letter abbreviations, and their dutch translation plus a perl script that makes the DNS zone files (forward and reverse)
magnesium IN A 10.4.0.12
ip12 IN CNAME magnesium
mg IN CNAME magnesium
It's public domain now... Get it all on one of my old web pages here
It uses the tld ".elements" (duh).
You need to change the perl script or zone files with a find-replace if your IP range is not 10.4.0.x though...
--- Hindsight is 20/20, but walking backwards is not the answer.
"WHO IS RUNNING HOST *LONGBEACH*???"
That's what HINFO records are for in the DNS.
dig hinfo longbeach
And the hinfo line is shown.
--- Hindsight is 20/20, but walking backwards is not the answer.
However you can have multiple "A" records for the same host. Assign the hosts "real" name (norm, etc) in on A record. Create another A record for smtp.yourdomain.org.
Problem solved.
You rated the post yourself by not checking "No Score +1 Bonux". The moderator didn't think it deserved the bonus, and moderated accordingly.
Just an aside here on the whole pr0n music thing: Did you know that the disco music from the Annette Haven movie "Barbara Broadcast" is the music they used later as the "Peoples Court" theme?
Setting his threshold to 5, Sparky eliminated most of the trolls on /.
Personally, I named my home servers "riffraff", "columbia", my laptop "eddie", my palmtop "sadie", and so on. My work servers are "ritz", "tim", "susan", etc. For those of you who get it, it's a pretty simple naming scheme, and for those who don't, the work ones are respectable, non-geeky at a glance, and easy to remember.
For large numbers of computers, name them by department and number. Or location and number. Room/cube numbers seem like a good idea until you start swaping offices and cubes. Best off keeping the numbers semi-random so you don't expect anything, and just log where they are/their name in your asset management software. A system moving inter-department/location will have to be wiped. Period. Easier to track software licenses anyway (especially if each department has a seperate software budget). If you've set up your users correctly, all their files are on the server, anyway. Don't use "Four character and number" or something like that. No reason to say MKEC4711 when it can just be marketingeastcoast-4711. YMMV depending on legacy systems you have to chat with or through.
--
Evan "Back in my day, we walked around the office looking at the back of each computer for the ring that fell out of the token network. And we *liked* it".
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
You can use certain records in your zone file to store descriptive info (geographical, etc,) on your hosts. I don't remember the type of record nor the syntax, but I remember reading about it in O'Reilly's DNS and BIND. This data is obviously easily retrieved via dig, etc.
Need a Linux consultant in New Orleans?
At http://www.sun.com/blueprints/0501/Naming.pdf you will find a Sun BluePrint entitled "Datacenter Naming Scheme" that offers methodologies to do exactly what you are looking for.
Actually, you're stupid - your method doesn't give a defined exit code as his did.
Our naming convention is simple:
The canonical name of a machine is assigned by the person who is setting up the machine at the time a name is needed. That name stays with that machine throughout its "lifetime." More on a machine's lifetime later. The only three constraints on the name are as follows:
1. It must be something that most people can spell if they heard the name.
2. It must be a name which can be published in a newspaper without embarassing us.
3. The name may not be duplicated.
Notice that this is the canonical name for a machine. We never call one of our machines smtp or www. We alias those standard names to the canonical name.
We define a lifetime for a machine as the time from which it is named to when it has lost its essence. In turn, we define a machine's essence as that which fundamentally separates it from other machines. In our current business, a machine's essence almost always is defined as the machine's purpose in life, which typically includes its OS and the servers running on the machine. There are times where we have converted a machine from Linux to OpenBSD, for example, but kept the name. If the machine is retasked, then it usually gets a fresh OS and new name; the old machine "dies" and a new machine is "born."
That name is added to a database via a record which also contains the machine's hardware configuration, its MAC address, the OS, its maintainer's email address, and its intended purposes in life (smtp, http, file server, compute server, etc.). From that point on, it is the responsibility of the maintainer to update that record. The hostname is considered the database key, and is therefore not supposed to change.
Every six months, however, clean out the database, looking for cruft and abandoned machines. We also try to identify machines that didn't make it into the database and add them. This also provides a quick way to inventory our equipment, since we primarly own computers and network gear.
spike, jet, faye, ed, did I miss anyone?