it's not even the right name

[rone]

Really, the wiki host should've been called library-of-babel, but that's an unwieldy hostname.  aleph would've been better suited to the monitoring host, but that one has the boring sjl-monitor1 moniker, as it's a production machine.

I've had my issues with naming hosts before.  Even though the sane choice is to go with the boring but practical scheme for the production systems, it still feels like i'm giving up a fundamentally fun part of my job.

I'm also occasionally toying with the idea of changing my journal's name (and have been for a couple of years).  I keep coming up with cool names that unfortunately are not representative of, well, me.

Comments

[rbarclay.livejournal.com]

All of our production machines have sane names (like Illuin, Kafka and so on), the visible stuff is just a matter of creative use of CNAMEs.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

That's an alternative i've considered but never implemented, mostly because i couldn't be arsed...

[rbarclay.livejournal.com]

I find it easier to talk about (or ssh into) kafka than having to remember if it's called dns1, ns1 or was it just ns.

I also trained the colleagues at our biggest customer to just add another CNAME every time they can't remember a machines real name (which'd be something like sheakkesa01). Some of those boxes have over 20 CNAMEs now, but at least they never get it wrong, not even when the pager goes off at 3am.

[pootrootbeer.livejournal.com]

When I started at my last job, all the development boxes were named after fine single-malts.

When I started at this job, I discovered all the development boxes had names like "samgdebd15". Well, maybe that means something to the network operations staff.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Well, at least that's easier to pronounce than "laphroaig".

[peglegpete.livejournal.com]

Probably tastes better, too.

[eejitalmuppet.livejournal.com]

Die, pirate scum!

[peglegpete.livejournal.com]

Heh. I don't mind a bit of earthy flavor, but I don't have a hankering for whiskey-flavored peat.

[pennyhill.livejournal.com]

I keep coming up with cool names that unfortunately are not representative of, well, me.

And those would be . . .

[therobbergirl.livejournal.com]

I say let's change his name to HopscotchNoogies!

(That's what I was going to say, but I suppose Bad username in LJ tag is equally undignified.)

[pennyhill.livejournal.com]

HopscotchNoogies!

Bwahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Maybe they could become the Noogies family:
Hopscotch Noogies
Butterscotch Noogies
FriedChocolate Noogies
ChewyTaffy Noogies
PirateSpittle Noogies
and the always popular YouAintTheBossaMe Noogies

:snicker:

[fanf]

I think interesting names for individual boxes is good, but for clusters I like to give the cluster as a whole the interesting name and number the boxes within it. For example, we have individual boxes canvas (admin/install/cvs server, last remnant of our colours naming scheme) and otanes (backup server, consort of cyrus), and clusters ppswitch (hasn't run pp for nine years) and cyrus (guess).

[en-ki.livejournal.com]

I just called the "hold everything" NetApp "babel".

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

"Note to Operations: please stop piling things on top of the NetApp."

[h-postmortemus.livejournal.com]

In one shop I worked at, we used a transformers theme. So we had servers such as Prime, Rhinox, Starfire, Unicron, etc. It rocked.

Later when I changed into security, I started naming servers after classic arcade game. So we had pacman, galaga and tetris. Yeah, tetris. Wasn't my first choice but I didn't build that box. It's a naming scheme I want to use again one day because it's. So. Fucking. Cool!

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Today, my boss decided that our scheme based on DJs was out. Since the new box was for our VP R&D, i asked him if "intercal" was OK. He said he didn't recognize the name; i told him what it was, and he said, "Algol." So that'll be our new scheme. Maybe.