Volition

As someone who has run a lot of computers that are connected twenty-four-seven to the Internet and used by at least tens of users, I know that having a good host naming scheme is important. The question of what constitutes a good naming scheme seems less well agreed upon, however.

This week's DWN covers some discussion of naming schemes kicked off by DD Lars Wirzenius. Also referenced was documentation of Debian's naming scheme and RFC 1178 - Choosing a Name for Your Computer, which I didn't know about.

For vee.net, I name hosts after north-american steam locomotive wheel configurations (I'll buy you a b33r if you can come up with a more obscure naming scheme ;), so there's pacific.home.vee.net, mountain.vee.net and so on. Let's see how well this stacks up against the RFC's recommendations.

What not to do:

• Don't overload other terms already in common use. Check. When have you used "mogul" in conversation lately?
• Don't choose a name after a project unique to that machine. Check. I do use service aliases (www.vee.net, mail.vee.net, etc.) but they are aliases for the actual host names.
• Don't use your own name. Check. mike.vee.net? Host not found.
• Don't use long names. Heh, whoops. I think both "consolidation" and "challenger" both fail this point. But hey, I can type both those words, like, really fast now!
• Avoid alternate spellings. Check. How else can you spell "columbian"?
• Avoid domain names. Avoid domain names. Hrm. How exactly does one do that? /:) Still, I don't have vee.vee.net, or net.vee.net, so, hey.
• Avoid domain-like names. Check. I don't think I'll confuse consolidation with .cx.
• Don't use antagonistic or otherwise embarrassing names. Heh heh heh.
• Don't use digits at the beginning of the name. No problem.
• Don't use non-alphanumeric characters in a name. Sure.
• Don't expect case to be preserved. Roger that.

Damm, that was a long list. Now, what should I be doing?

• Use words/names that are rarely used. Check. I bet you don't have a machine called mikado.
• Use theme names. Check (need I say more?).
• Use real words. Check (for some strange definition of "real").
• Don't worry about reusing someone else's hostname. Check, but I don't think it would be a problem anyway. >:)
• There is always room for an exception. Check. I'll leave it as an exercise for you to work out what mine is.

So how do I stack up? Pretty good: 15 out of 16. Damm, I rock! :D