How do you name your machines?



  • Continuing the discussion from What song shall Spencer post line by line into the Likes thread?:
    @accalia said:

    i really should install my VPN client on Tali'zorah so i can be in any country i want to be in (or enough that it's not an issue)

    i have it on Amaterasu, Hanako, Jadzia, Liara, Devbox3 but not my lovely Tali'zorah

    hmm... Devbox3... i really should give her a proper name soon. it has been two years....


    @accalia said:
    yeah, you may have also seen a bit of a pattern in my names...

    for completeness the Wifi network is KOS-MOS and the printer is vinyl-scratch, the old laser printer before vinyl was, rather appropriately it turned out, named pandora

    of course my phone is really the odd ball out name wise, She's called Nazara

    How do you name your machines (and what are some of their names)? Generally talking your personal machines, rather than corporate ones (which should have a logical naming scheme that indicates where they are and what they do).

    I name mine after Greek Primordial deities. My main rig is Erebos, the home server is Aither, Media PC is Hemera, Surface Pro is Nyx, and my phone is Ananke. My WiFi network is called Phanes.


  • FoxDev

    I'd love to say that i have an overarching scheme that meshed everything into one overall mythology.... but nope. i name them after female leads (or co-leads in some cases) of whatever TV show or anime i've been watching lately or female protagonist/villian from whatever games i've been playing lately.

    as for Devbox3 she's from a series of VMs i needed to setup (10 of them) that were expected to last about three days for testing something. various things happened and i no longer needed the other 9 but Devbox3 needed to stick around for a while and i've never gotten around to naming her properly.... until now.

    I give to you ......Lady Palutena! (formerly known as Devbox3)

    supporting peripherals get names of supporting cast, hence the name Vinyl-Scratch

    Pandora came to me preenamed. someone had sharpied it on the front before putting it in the yardsale. turns out it was supposed to be a warning....


  • Garbage Person

    Final Fantasy 6 (III if you're an asshole who likes ambiguity) characters. I'll basically never run out. If I do, I'll move on to one of the lesser, but still good iterations (7 is not good and I will fight you to the death on that unassailable fact) or perhaps Chrono Cross.


  • FoxDev

    7 had an enjoyable battle mechanic when the crap story didn't get in the way... which it did 99.99999999999999% of the time.

    really though i think 6 the pinnacle of the games for the GBA (most of FF has been ported to the GB* platforms). of course the playstation version is better, but i never had the playstation myself.


  • Garbage Person

    Gameboy? PLAYSTATION!? HERETIC!

    FF6 for SNES is the one true version. (Actually, of all the ports, that one survived basically intact. They fixed some 'sploitz, but nothing of real note changed)

    I never really liked any of the FF battle mechanics - I was in it for the story.



  • I don't name machines, you linux yuppies.
    Final Fantasy 5 was the best one, you PS4 yuppies.


  • FoxDev

    true story. i've never owned a game system other than PC/GameBoy (i think i still have my original B/W one around somewhere. probably still works too.)

    i should get the SNES version then.

    and track down the original versions

    and learn Japanese so i can play them in original language....

    or get the fansubbed patched ROMs......



  • I've never owned any game system (unless you count the PC).
    Played all them Final fantasy 5s / legend of zelda oracles on emulators.

    Hardware confuses and scares me.


  • FoxDev

    so long as you remember to never connect red to black you should be good to go with hardware.

    well having good medical insurance also helps.


  • Garbage Person

    The fansub ROMs are excellent. Highly recommended.



  • Warning: On Topic Post.

    Coming from a gaming background, tradition in my circle was to name your computer by your choice of screen name. For a while I used to name computers using celestial bodies (I had a pair of Pentium 2s named Phobos and Deimos in the late 90s/early 2000s), but generally nowadays I just append a descriptor on the end of my screen name. I'm boring these days 😦


  • kills Dumbledore

    I just go for jokes. Don't have what you'd call a network at home, my dev/gaming/surfing machine is called PC Gone Mad

    I do know a guy who names all of his computers and wifi networks after the Hitchiker's Guide To The Galaxy



  • I don't have any specific rules.

    My previous PC: Geoff
    My current PC: GeoffJunior
    My work laptop: Beelzubuntu
    My phone: Maurice
    My printer: Archibald McPrinterson



  • I really hate unrelated naming of servers. I try to stick with descriptive names like:

    • db-dev-01
    • str-stg-04
    • app-live-08

    Before VM this wasn't the best solution because you could have and http server which also worked as a memcached but today you can create single-purpose VM's almost for nothing.



  • Why care?

    At home the schema is owner-pc. In my particular case since I own two, I have myname-laptop and myname-desktop.

    And the wifi name's home.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    $my_name-$identifier

    Eg:

    • $my_name-PC
    • $my_name-Laptop
    • $my_name-Win2k8

    At work they're all named for us.


  • FoxDev

    @Eldelshell said:

    I really hate unrelated naming of servers. I try to stick with descriptive names like:

    db-dev-01
    str-stg-04
    app-live-08

    for Servers or other non personal devices I completely agree. we have a bunch of servers at work that the previous sysadmin thought it was a good idea to name.... Sauron Grotto R2D2 Wookie Nazgul and so on. i hate working in prod because of that. dev and test are newer environments and have sane names sqldev apptest etc.

    so yeah. the cute names are fine for personal computers but drop them when you start naming servers.



  • There's also the completely uncute unwieldy way at my workplace:

    SRV-*******-## for servers
    WS-*******-## for workstations
    (***** is company acronym + what I assume might be a building identifier, ## is a number)

    With no differentiation of what the Servers and Workstations are actually used for.


  • FoxDev

    for us servers (except for the older prod servers that the previous sysadmin named) are named after what they do.

    workstations are named after the individual or room they are assigned to, so i have accalia and accalialt*

    • well, no, actually it's my real name but you get the idea


  • That's like using with cute names but more boring and harder to remember.

    - "SSH to Sauron and reboot the database" - "SSH to db-dev-04 and reboot the database" - "SSH to srv-inipdv21-02 and reboot the database"

    This is why I had to make mcm and avoid going crazy.


  • FoxDev

    bookmarking that!



  • Role separation?

    The development (and testing) SQL server runs on WS-*******-32 here, which is the desktop PC of the lead dev.
    Although, I just took a look at the network overview and it seems like the new Exchange server actually has "EXCHANGE" in its name *gasp*. But everything else? Useless acronyms!


  • FoxDev

    that, and it becomes easier to track who brought the virus into the building. if a computer names SBillings suddenly starts spewing virii, then it's a pretty good bet that Sam up on 7th was the one that opened the email attachment she shouldn't have.

    we're not primarily a tech company so that happens far too frequently for me to even consider connecting my personal electronics to the network (we have a wireless network for work only computers that's MAC address filtered and one for personal computers that isn't. I'm not letting Tali'zorah or Nazara touch either one! (those two being the ones that i carry with me 99% of the time.))

    EDIT: For the record, AFAIK we have no SBillings on staff.



  • "Asus-laptop-LinuxMint"
    "Dell-Desktop-W7"
    etc...

    I am not very creative with names.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    My machine name schema is quite boring, I just use the phonetic alphabet (Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, etc...).

    I always call my primary machine Alpha, so occasionally an old machine will get renamed. I only have 3 PCs knocking about at home though.


  • Garbage Person

    @aliceif said:

    SRV--## for serversWS--## for workstations (***** is company acronym + what I assume might be a building identifier, ## is a number)

    With no differentiation of what the Servers and Workstations are actually used for.

    Ours is actually worse.

    [prefix][os]-[nominalnetworksegment][osagain][type][environment]<##>

    prefix is a 2-character prefix with two values: One for VMs, one for physical boxes.
    os is win, lnx, esx
    nominalnetworksegment is a single character denoting whether it's in the dmz or not
    osagain is a single character for the OS - w or l - VM hosts go by the type of guest they host (uhhhhh)
    type is a single character abbreviation for what it does. Baasically either app or file.
    environment is a single character abbreviation for dev, prod, stage, or whatever.
    ## is a sequential number for servers with the exact same combination to that point.

    Servers are referred to in conversation as [environment]##

    I own servers that have been physical and are now virtual.
    I own servers that have changed OS.
    I own servers that were initially provisioned in the DMZ for god knows what reason and are no longer there.
    Most of my servers are, surprise, app servers.
    I own servers that have been reprovisioned to new environments.

    Names don't get changed after initial provisioning.

    As I result, I own 5 different production servers that are <something>p06.
    I have a half dozen other 2-way naming collisions.
    I open a lot of tickets for the wrong fucking server. Management and governance approves them happily - they clearly don't even look at it. I'm basically certain that I could open tickets to get other people's servers literally decommissioned and nobody would check that I'm actually supposed to be able to do that.

    Also, the numbers are WEIRDLY low in Windows appserver world. Single digit low. In fact, in all the sequences in which I have severs except for one, mine start at 1 and go up sequentially from there. Database servers have a similar, but different naming scheme, but the cluster numbers are up in the 30's.

    Other, more verbose and easy to communicate accurately naming schemes persist in the outlying site datacenters (except in cases where facility names or team names are involved, and they changed over time, meaning my team has 3 fucking servers ending in "sql1" AND a server ending in "sql" all supposedly named for our original site and our team name at time of commissioning). Naturally these are all colloquially identified by the last token.

    Individual workstations are a state name (you can see who's traveling from where by looking at the asset tag sticker on the lid of their laptop!) followed by a long alphanumeric serial number that looks a lot like an unformatted guid.


  • BINNED

    @trithne said:

    Warning: On Topic Post.

    You know you're on thedailywtf when you see a warning that a post is on topic.



  • I'm pretty unimaginative. TJ-PC, TJ-Laptop, TJ-Tablet, TJ-Phone. Servers are even worse. I have SpaceEngineers, Minecraft, TeamSpeak, LAMP, DiscourseBots. Yes those are actual hostnames.



  • Didn't we just have this exact thread like a month ago? Am I crazy?

    EDIT: http://what.thedailywtf.com/t/the-naming-thread-names-given-to-networks-used-for-test-data-etc/3185

    Cripes you people, is this an amnesiac support forum now?



  • No, no, no. That was a topic regarding names used for networks and test data. This is a topic regarding names used for workstations and VMs.

    It's very important to separate tangential conversations, so that the thread keeps staying on topic. That's The Right Way.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @blakeyrat said:

    Didn't we just have this exact thread like a month ago? Am I crazy?

    It was kind of weird. And also talked about data stuff.

    That said, all of my home stuff has been Stargate SG1 stuff. Currently using bratac. Have had at least oneill, carter, jackson, walter, hammond, tealc, vala. SSIDs are currently SGC and BetaSite.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    Cripes you people, is this an amnesiac support forum now?

    Not amnesia, just apathy. At first I thought this was a necro-post of that thread.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    Am I crazy?

    Yes, as that was not about naming hosts which is the topic here. Personally I use greek deities and heroes for personal hosts (and different set of references for networks).

    Edit: though some did include hostnames in that one as well.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    My company does a braindead version of this. The previous sysadmin, who's been gone for 3-4 years, but we haven't really cycled out all the computers yet, would name things xxxxyyynnnnnn
    where xxxx is an acronym for the company and thus entirely useless, yyy is the office, and nnnnnn for servers is usage+number or first inital+last name.

    So you have xxxxdaldc02 and xxxxnjfs01 (Dallas backup domain controller and New Jersey file server) and xxxxdalbsmith or xxxxdalbsmit-lt (Bob Smith's desktop or laptop.)

    Since he left, the "standard" is relaxed and is generally turning into either the Dell service tag # or bsmith-pc/bsmith-lt.



  • My personal machines are named after astronauts. I don't recycle names even with a new installation on the same machine, so I'm most of the way through Apollo.



  • I don't have a consistent naming convention at home. I should set that up sometime, now that I have 3 boxes (2 desktops and a bog-old laptop that's more or less due for replacement) instead of just one...

    As to work? Workstations are <department abbreviation>-<desktop/laptop identifier><some sort of serial number<. Virtuals are <thing that IDs this as a VM><base-16 serial number>, and physical servers are <location ID><base-16 serial number>. We also have two ID schemes for Oracle instances, depending on whether you are a regular instance or a RAC cluster.



  • At work, we use a <location><function><num> naming scheme. <Location> is the sites 8 character CLLI code, <function> is what it does, and <num> is a three digit number where the first digit is a generation number and the last two numbers are issued sequentially. So, a DB server might be named abcdnyaadb101, and it's replacement would be abcdnyaadb201. Dev and QA get -devXX and -qaXX suffixes, where XX is a two digit number identifying separate parallel environments. We tend to complain at management if they ask us to build -qaXX environments where XX > 01, but they sometimes make us do it anyway.

    At home, I use named related somehow to jello (jello, knox, gelatin). I haven't named anything hooves yet, but I really should. Serverish home VMs get functional names.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @jello said:

    At home, I use named related somehow to jello (jello, knox, gelatin).

    No Dead Kennedy references yet either?


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @boomzilla said:

    No Dead Kennedy references yet either?

    Kepone, Cambodia, and Nazi Punks aren't exactly great machine names.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @FrostCat said:

    Kepone, Cambodia, and Nazi Punks aren't exactly great machine names.

    Better as SSIDs, so others can share in the fun.



  • I was a huge Homestuck nerd a few years ago and instituted a system of naming systems after locations in Homestuck, either directly (Skaia, Prospit, Alternia) or indirectly (Clockwork, Haze, Shade). Embedded devices get named after planes from Magic the Gathering (Zendikar, Lorwyn). I also have some devices inherited from my roommate who names them after Latin names for animals.

    My SSIDs are unreadable jumbles of Unicode symbols because I'm a jerk like that.



  • @Maciejasjmj said:

    This is a topic regarding names used for workstations and VMs.

    @Spencer said:

    How do you name your machines? Generally talking your personal machines, rather than corporate ones

    <post can't be empty? your MUM can't be empty>


  • ♿ (Parody)

    Doesn't everyone have that stuff at home?



  • Well, I figure if you have a workstation at home, you may be doing home wrong (unless you work from home yada yada). VMs certainly have their place though



  • @Spencer said:

    Well, I figure if you have a workstation at home, you may be doing home wrong

    Or you differentiate between game/fun box and kids do homework box (or writing box or whatever productive stuff box).



  • Oh, you mean that old P3 sitting in the corner running XP, segregated from the rest of the network so it doesn't infect everything else?


  • FoxDev

    which is that, the funbox or the workbox?



  • The kids box.

    Granted, one of those boxes doesn't exist for me yet (no kids), but I figure (1) it's a requirement for any geek with kids and (2) it eventually will exist


  • FoxDev

    ooooh, you mean that Raspberry pi hooked up to my old 19" monitor and spliced into the powersupply of the monitor in a way that would never be OSHA certified?



  • Yeah, that sort of thing. The box we're both proud and ashamed of and has some major issues that we'd like to fix, but can't be bothered to because it's just for the kids/probably going to get trashed anyway


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