Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

RFC 1178: Choosing a name for your computer (1990)

tools.ietf.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 128 posts

Re: RFC 1178: Choosing a name for your computer (1990)

#111

Post by watersb »

zoomablemind wrote: post #91
rgj wrote: post #76

Best naming scheme I ever saw was at Harbinger in the late nineties. They used the periodic system. The last octet of the IP address corresponded to the atomic number, and you could use the full element name, or the abbreviation. So carbon.harbinger.com was x.x.x.6 and c.harbinger.com was a CNAME to carbon. oxygen or o was .8 etcetera.

> So carbon.harbinger.com was x.x.x.6 and c.harbinger.com was a CNAME to carbon. oxygen or o was .8 etcetera. No wonder helium was mostly hanging ... Sorry, could not resist. It is a clever naming scheme. At one site a client used names from The Three Stooges, then they got the 6th server (exhausting the list of the lead characters).

We had Stooges servers in the 1990s...

Re: RFC 1178: Choosing a name for your computer (1990)

#112

Post by kps »

salamander014 wrote: post #62
kps wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally — since we're all chiming in — I use elements. My fallback DNS is a periodic table.

Please tell me you assign IP addresses based on atomic weight! This might be the coolest thing I've read all year...

Atomic number, yes. And of course every machine has a one or two-letter alias.

Re: RFC 1178: Choosing a name for your computer (1990)

#113

Post by 1996 »

oarsinsync wrote: post #89
1996 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now that most things are virtual and easily created/destroyed there's no good reason _not_ to name functionally. Uh, my servers with at least 256G of RAM and a raid60 of more drives than you have virtual machines can't easily be moved around. > If you are dealing with assets in a physical environment then obviously the above doesn't apply. Yes, baremetal, the only way to guarantee performance!

> Yes, baremetal, the only way to guarantee performance! Single function bare metal, that is. At which point, the boring functional naming scheme re-applies easily. If you're running multiple different functions on a single box, how are you guaranteeing any performance for any single function? How does that differ from using a hypervisor with similar limiting features?

> How does that differ from using a hypervisor with similar limiting features?

Depends on what you think is the most costly: kernel control of processes, or hypervisor control of kernels controlling processes.

Based on my experience, no hypervisor is worth the trouble if you have the budget for dedicated servers.

> If you're running multiple different functions on a single box

The thing is, you don't do that unless you must.

Re: RFC 1178: Choosing a name for your computer (1990)

#115

Post by cortesoft »

genewitch wrote: post #109
cortesoft wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, I really hate code names for software versions... I can never remember which name is which version. I wish everyone would just say “16.04” and “18.04”, that makes it really obvious which version cam before the other one.

I never bothered to figure out if Ubuntu kept parts of the name between the 16.04 and the 16.10 version, or if they just used the next letter in the alphabet. The iso images are numbered (ubuntu-server-16.04.02-x64.iso or whatever) thankfully, so i have 4 ubuntu templates - "leaving LTS this year", the next two LTS, and whatever the 9 month version is currently (20.10 being the current 9 month version) Thankfully qem…

Everything in our system is named ., but that is because everything is set up automatically by provisioning systems that way. We have thousands of servers in hundreds of data centers, so it the only time you ever go to a particular machine is to debug something.

Re: RFC 1178: Choosing a name for your computer (1990)

#116

Post by p_l »

anarcat wrote: post #102
p_l wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Functional names for servers are IMHO one of the worst possible options, because functions drift over time. Have individual hw named in unique way that isn't related to functionality it runs, then use CNAMEs specific to functionality - i.e. never point a DNS client at "freddy.dc.somecorp.com", you point it at "dns01.dc.somecorp.com". The decision on what machines need unique names, not just pseudorandom IDs or simila…

I used to name physical servers like pets (greek gods or whatever) and virtuals like cattle (function), with the idea that, yes, function of physical machines can change over time... But the problem with that logic is that the name is not only attached to the metal, it's set (and mostly so, I'd argue) in software, as the OS hostname. And then what happens next is that the motherboard of that precious pet melts down a…

Used to name arrays, at one point had a hell of a problem because we found out that we had no way to consistently name, and thus communicate, PCI-X I/O-bays (it was a big POWER server...)

But if a pet "melts", well, the pet died. You moved the functions over to another pet. Whether it's a move from Zeus to Jupiter, or rebuilding your precious cattle management system on eu-central-1 after us-east-1 burned down and you got slapped with data locality requirements, is less relevant ;)

Re: RFC 1178: Choosing a name for your computer (1990)

#117

Post by chunkyks »

The biggest mistake I've made, once myself, and once inheriting a network someone else passed on to me: Picking a theme that's too small.

I inherited a couple servers "jules" and "vincent" [after the Pulp Fiction characters]. I added mia and ringo, I started finding remaining names weren't great. Butch is a bit homoerotic. "zed" is one I've used, but I can't wait for the day someone without a sense of humor figures that out. I've also used "chopper" now. "Marsellus" is too hard to spell. "watch" is next on my list, but that's really dredging the bottom of the barrel.

The other network, we used Scooby Doo characters because there was no way that room would ever have more than five systems... of course the next tranche of added systems had to go with a totally different theme. So the room now has the mystery machine occupants, and ... dragons from how to train your dragon.

Re: RFC 1178: Choosing a name for your computer (1990)

#118

Post by acomjean »

cortesoft wrote: post #66
acomjean wrote: post #20

Like a lot of things, people can remember names of things better than numbers. Genes for example, it’s easier to remember their names lz, wnt, than their associated gene Id number. But like stars and many other things there are too many to give each a unique name. Naming can make sense, our old cluster was named after orchestra parts. When you logged In you where placed on the lobby. The machines where clustered (vio…

On the other hand, I really hate code names for software versions... I can never remember which name is which version. I wish everyone would just say “16.04” and “18.04”, that makes it really obvious which version cam before the other one.

I like software version numbers too. The names blur (is lion before or after leopard...)

But Genes and Stars are different In my mind because they are names pointing to separate things. Though they are numbered in order of discovery....

Re: RFC 1178: Choosing a name for your computer (1990)

#119

Post by KMnO4 »

throwaway525142 wrote: post #97
majewsky wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternative method for Arch Linux: Install the `rfc` package, then find the RFC at /usr/share/doc/rfc/txt/rfc1178.txt. A very nice package to have installed when travelling far from an internet connection.

That unfortunately has an installed size of 500MiB.

Perhaps a problem two decades ago but is that really an issue now?

Re: RFC 1178: Choosing a name for your computer (1990)

#120

Post by anarcat »

p_l wrote: post #116
anarcat wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to name physical servers like pets (greek gods or whatever) and virtuals like cattle (function), with the idea that, yes, function of physical machines can change over time... But the problem with that logic is that the name is not only attached to the metal, it's set (and mostly so, I'd argue) in software, as the OS hostname. And then what happens next is that the motherboard of that precious pet melts down a…

Used to name arrays, at one point had a hell of a problem because we found out that we had no way to consistently name, and thus communicate, PCI-X I/O-bays (it was a big POWER server...) But if a pet "melts", well, the pet died. You moved the functions over to another pet. Whether it's a move from Zeus to Jupiter, or rebuilding your precious cattle management system on eu-central-1 after us-east-1 burned down and yo…

If you can easily move function between pets, it's not a pet, it's cattle. :)
Post reply on HN