Re: Server naming conventions

[Kevin Kelly <kck () IAS EDU>]

Hi,

We name our servers according to bodies of water (e.g.  Stream, Draw, Moat, etc.) or things related to water or the 
weather (e.g. Tide, Wind, Storm, etc.).  Given the number of servers that we have (approx. 40 - 45), we can follow this 
naming convention fairly easily.  Best of all, this naming convention does not provide any sort of clue as to what 
services are provided by the individual servers.

Some other naming conventions that I have come across include:

1.  Capital cities across the world (a list is available at 
http://geography.about.com/od/countryinformation/a/capitals.htm)
2.  Crayola Crayon colors (a list is available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Crayola_crayon_colors)
3.  Greek Gods (e.g. Hercules, Zeus, etc.)
4.  Items that make up the universe (e.g. Star, Jupiter, Mars, etc.).

We have a different naming convention for our client workstations.  I'd be happy to share that with you offline if you 
are interested.

Thanks,

Kevin Kelly
Institute for Advanced Study
Princeton, NJ
USA

-----Original Message-----
From: The EDUCAUSE Security Constituent Group Listserv on behalf of Woodruff, Daniel
Sent: Wed 2/10/2010 2:17 PM
To: SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU
Subject: [SECURITY] Server naming conventions
 
What kinds of naming conventions do everyone follow when building new
servers?

 

Currently, our Windows hosts are named following the pattern 'its-w2ks#'
or similar, where the # is the next in the sequence, and the names are
published in DNS. What are the potential drawbacks or using a scheme
like this? Do you think it is any better or worse from a security
perspective than using something like 'its-oracle-1' which has the
service right in the name? We're concerned about disclosing the purpose
of the machine via its name, and are trying to get an idea of what other
schools do for their machines. Thanks in advance.

 

Dan Woodruff

University IT Security and Policy

University of Rochester