Re: sage-members-digest V1 #144

[Paul Caskey <pcaskey@swcp.com>]

Bob> From: Bob Van Cleef <vancleef@microunity.com>
Bob> Date: Wed, 5 Aug 1998 16:56:50 -0700 (PDT)
Bob> Subject: Re: Machine naming convention

Bob> The most effective method I've used in the past is a simple, generic
Bob> name, based losely on the type of system; sunos, irix, win95, etc.
Bob> Such as wk001, wk002, wk003...  allowing the users of personal

(My only question here is: what is "wk"?  Windoze Komputer?)  ;-)

Bob> workstations to select an "alias" -- in which case the alias became
Bob> the canonical name and the generic name became the CNAME.

Bob> This allowed administrators to easiely identfy all the SunOS systems
Bob> for running batch administrative functions, while allowing the users
Bob> to personalize their environment.  The generic name remained with 
Bob> the system, the personal name changed with the user.  

I'm currently working for a government research lab, and the whole
facility is essentially one big Dilbert strip, but they follow this kind
of naming scheme, too, and it seems to work quite well.  I always liked
meaningless names like "frodo" or "hydra", as recommended by that RFC
someone referred to (if I remember correctly), but I can't find any
flaws in this scheme.  Ours in particular uses 8 characters, like
sahp1234 or slss2345:

sa/sl  -- Sandia Albuquerque or Sandia Livermore (site designation)
hp/ss/sg/da/etc.   -- HP, Sun SPARC, SGI, Dec Alpha, etc.
1234   -- Guess we'll have to wrap after 10,000 machines of one type

We even use this for our networking equipment:

cr/cc/ka/sp    -- Cisco Router, Cisco Catalyst, Kalpana, SynoPtics ...

Then we use the aliases as Bob described, to keep our sanity.  But
the "sass1752" name tells you whether it's a computer or a router, which
brand, which site, and even roughly how old it is, since the numbers are
assigned in order and you get a feel for the timeline.


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Paul Caskey            pcaskey@swcp.com            http://Paul.Caskey.com
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