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Hostnames

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Re: Hostnames

#101

Post by joseph »

gmjosack wrote: post #79

After working in a few pretty large environments I have some pretty strong opinions about hostnames. I've seen everything from cute theme based names to function/role based names to meaningless uuid based names. Usually you see the theme based names in much smaller environments, though I've seen it up to hundreds of machines. One problem I have with this approach is that people begin to personify machines, excusing t…

One of my biggest pet peeves is when people name a host after a product, say 'mysql-prod-101', then later they decide to switch from MySQL to Oracle. I worked in an environment where a number of hosts contained 'tomcat' in the name but they were all running weblogic. Better to name based on the role, as you say, so the mysql-prod-101 would be better named db-prod-101. However, I've come to think that nowadays with configuration managment it's not really necessary to give hostnames at all. People usually don't like that suggestion when I bring it up, but if you are using something like puppet's 'facter' to run actions only on hosts that match certain 'facts', what do you really need hostnames for?

Edit: I just reread your paragraph about using positional hostnames. This seems like a good use, because the main problem I see with role based hostnames is that hosts can take on multiple roles. But in general the hostname seems unimportant if you are tagging your hosts with roles.

Re: Hostnames

#102

Post by pantalaimon »

whalesalad wrote: post #36
nostromo wrote: post #24

We use Pokemon. There's something super memorable about Blastoise, Slowbro, Squirtle, Ninetales, Jigglypuff... I also color my tabs the color of the Pokemon for fast reference.

This is freaking brilliant. I grew up with that game and never even considered using them for hostnames.

I always had the idea, but never enough machines to name.

Re: Hostnames

#103

Post by blibble »

jimmcslim wrote: post #76
vonskippy wrote: post #19

location-service-type-number accting-ws-01 email-server-01 building1-upstairs-switch-01 eastgroup-noc-router-01 Why go cutesy when you can actually define what they do and where they are?

Perhaps the question 'how do you name your servers?' should be added to tech interviews, the more cutesy the response, the less mature/experienced the interviewee possibly is (i.e. having not been burnt by the obfuscation of such as scheme)?

I don't buy this logic.

Renaming machines is a pain, and they inevitably end up with more/different stuff on them than was originally intended, then your "helpful" name like pukweb01 (production, uk, web, 01) is worse than "pikachu" (as it's incorrect).

the correct way to do this is to give the machine a name with no meaning (maybe pikachu, maybe box005) and have a list of the services running on each machine, and use DNS for those (say www1/ns1 that CNAMEs to the actual hostname).

personally, I'd argue that anyone that calls machines things like "pukweb01" has had little to no experience with a rapidly evolving system...

Re: Hostnames

#105

Post by philwelch »

Theodores wrote: post #33
lost-theory wrote: post #26

Cute server naming schemes are one of my pet peeves. In my experience the only two logical choices are: sequential numbers (e.g. foo1, ..., foo100, ... if your company name is Foo Corp.), or hashes / uuids (like amazon instance IDs, e.g. i-977a24e3). If you want to give a server a memorable or cute name, use DNS or some kind of alias.

Read the aforementioned RFC - with sequential numbers you are not naming them. I can imagine how thrilled your colleagues are if they have to ssh into i-977 what was the rest of it?

If you don't have some toolset around managing your servers and have to resort to memorizing hostnames, being able to remember hostnames is the least of your problems.

Re: Hostnames

#106

Post by pantalaimon »

johndoeee wrote: post #98
nostromo wrote: post #24

We use Pokemon. There's something super memorable about Blastoise, Slowbro, Squirtle, Ninetales, Jigglypuff... I also color my tabs the color of the Pokemon for fast reference.

We're using pokemon ascii art[0] as welcome banners on our servers, makes it easier to notice if you logged into the wrong server. [0] http://www.angelfire.com/mn/Maija/pokemon/pokepack.zip

those are only 120

Re: Hostnames

#107

Post by philwelch »

blibble wrote: post #103
jimmcslim wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps the question 'how do you name your servers?' should be added to tech interviews, the more cutesy the response, the less mature/experienced the interviewee possibly is (i.e. having not been burnt by the obfuscation of such as scheme)?

I don't buy this logic. Renaming machines is a pain, and they inevitably end up with more/different stuff on them than was originally intended, then your "helpful" name like pukweb01 (production, uk, web, 01) is worse than "pikachu" (as it's incorrect). the correct way to do this is to give the machine a name with no meaning (maybe pikachu, maybe box005) and have a list of the services running on each machine, and us…

If you're repurposing the machine anyway you might as well totally wipe and reprovision it, right?

Re: Hostnames

#109

Post by philwelch »

Theodores wrote: post #80

Imagine that some mystery virus has taken down or infected several boxes on your network and management want to know exactly what has gone on. In this scenario things are pretty sober and you really don't want to have anyone asking why the computers are named after some characters from a TV show or pretentious Greek myth characters. They won't see the funny side of it (if there is a funny side). It is therefore much…

Or the desktop hostname could be "employeelogin-desktop".
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