Re: Server naming conventions

[John Kristoff <jtk () DEPAUL EDU>]

On Wed, Feb 10, 2010 at 02:17:08PM -0500, Woodruff, Daniel wrote:
> What kinds of naming conventions do everyone follow when building new
> servers?

I know I posted some sort of an answer to a list somewhere a few
years ago, but I can't find it to point you to it.  I'll try to
answer again, hopefully I'm going to be somewhat consistent.  :-)

Note, there is no perfect method, but you can get to a pretty good
place with a well thought out plan.

Unless you can count the number of unique host names on one hand,
I highly recommend you create some structure to your naming
convention.  Naming servers after movie characters, cosmic objects
and other things are cute and all, but do that with  aliases if
you must.

I digress..  It took me a long time to learn the difference between
the Dan Ryan, Kennedy, Eisenhower, Edens, etc.  Like much of the
rest of the country in typical reference to its highway system, the
Chicago expressways signs largely only show the route number, but all
the local people and media use the common name.  Very confusing for
newbies.

I'm going to assume the names are published under one of your
DNS zones.  In fact, its not a bad idea to create a special
"network gear" zone just for this purpose.  However, I don't
recommend going crazy and creating multiple zones for different
types of gear or locations.

As for the host name, define a *small* set of categories, short
names for locations and some space for a uniq id, which might be
a simple counter.  So for example, your gear might fall into one
or more of these classes:

  srv     = server
  swt     = repeater, bridge, switch, anything below L3
  rtr     = router, anything that is primarily L3

Try to keep the classes of gear to a bare minimum.  Maybe
a 'utl' category and throw everything else that can't fit
or if you really don't want to make it obvious.

Six or less categories is probably good.  If you're over 10,
that is probably too much.

Then come up with an id for location.  You probably need at
least two parts here.  One common approach is to use a building
and floor, but you can add on a 3rd loc tag such as a wing.
So for example:

  foo-2e

represents the building with short name foo in the east side
of the building on the 2nd floor.

Then give yourself room for a uniq id if you need it.  So a
complete hostname might:

  srv-foo-2e.netgear.example.org

I like to use 3 character labels as much as possible.

Beware, try not to use labels your organization does not control.
For example, avoid the use of area codes.

Then make sure your PTR names (reverse names) use this well
structured format.

John