I’ve ended up with a number of machines on my network, and a need to name them all in a somewhat logical way. For several years I had them named after the planets, which worked well until the PCs for myself, my girlfriend, servers and Raspberry Pi’s quickly summed up to more than the eight planets. I’ve broadened it somewhat to include any Greek/Roman mythological figure, but the system is definitely not as clean as it used to be.
Do you have a coordinated naming theme for your machines?
deleted by creator
Meta machines on my system offer data. Infra machines on my system run the network (infrastructure). But my favourite is naming all my HDD’s platters; Media Platters, Service Platters, etc.
Domestic no Kanojo is an anime that people describe as rubbish. Maybe it is, depending on where you’re coming from, but I was invested in it, and so decided to honour the anime/manga by naming my servers “Hina Tachibana”, “Natsuo Fujii”, “Rui Tachibana” and “Miu Ashihara”.
removed by mod
I kept the naming scheme I used when I was doing independent tech support: snack bars. People got a chuckle when they heard “Kit Kat was misbehaving”. So I kept it for my servers, Kit Kat, Toaster & Strudel, and Snickers
Pretty much same as you: If it works for NASA or it’s a heavenly body, it works for me. Main PC is called SATURN V (SATURN for most things). Laptop is called HYPERION. Currently saving up to replace SATURN with ARTEMIS. Might throw in a GAIA NAS/virtualization server at some point, if cash flow allows for it. I’m not as picky about my family’s devices that I’ve set up, though… They’ll keep their randomly generated names, mostly out of laziness.
Anime girls. I want to change but I’m too far gone to have a random name
Rei - main pc
Asuna - main server
Milim - plex
Aqua - laptop
Darkness - first plex (the drives failed and lost everything rip)
Rem - raspi (pihole)
Ram - second raspi (home assistant)
I tend to name mine after their physical appearance, though I’m leaning towards space-related names now.
I’ll copy a Discord message I sent someone while explaining my naming scheme:
in chronological order: my very old laptop was black and grey so it was Batman my first build had orange/gold fans so it was Aurum my next build was black and white so it was Mono my current build had lots of RGB so it was Nova (like supernova) my home server has the BitFenix wings logo so it was Flight my laptop is sleek and pretty speedy so it was Comet
First macbook air was ethereal, nas was bitbucket, first macbook pros deathstar then dreadnaught, second bigger nas was abyss…
More recently I’ve been using Neal Stevenson characters and themes.
Mobile wass “primer”, high spec laptop was “reason”, workhorse laptop was “chevaline”…
Work servers I’ve always liked two themes:
Chaos or medications:
Anarchy, bedlam, disturbed, chaos, mayhem, futility, entropy, maelstrom,
Sudafed, NyQuil, Tylenol, advil, codeine, morphine, panadol, Valium,
I like the name of the 2nd NAS because you can say “I’m just gonna chuck these files into the abyss”
I use Quake 3 characters names: doom, crash, sorlag, razor, bitterman, xaero, …
I give them weird syntax names so if someone was to hack in the names wouldn’t give away what they are immediately. I don’t reuse numbers so that if I rebuild something it gets a new num.
Location-Ordinal-NetworkNum-Counter Eg AU-01-01-01
Containers are just their application name except where I have more than 1 then its Application01,02,etc.
I name them after the cpu inside.
But i only have 3 pcs. No pi’s or other things, so its a bit simpler… for now.
I don’t remember where I started, but for a long time it was Firefly characters. I had to dig deep enough to name a system YoSaffBridge.
Then I switched to gemstones from Steven Universe. Which I still use for mostly for “end user devices”, i.e. desktops, mobile, cars (mine is peridot).
The functional stuff and the VMs I name by function. Router is router, switches are sw-0#, pihole-0#, minecraft, plex, ipam (yes I have an ipam for my network), etc…
It’s simpler and I like to be able just ssh/browse to “function” than trying to remember that ipam is on bismuth.
Years of working for a company that did lots of acquisitions, where I had to deal with integrating whimsically named infrastructure, gave me a strong appreciation for a functional and consistent naming scheme.
Recently, I just use whatever comes first to my mind. The last few machines have been egg-related.
At some previous employers, we used fish and salmon (king, sockeye, coho, etc).
Derek Derek1 DerekNew Derek2 NewDerek Ted DerekNew2 DerekTheServer Derek-Derek DerekMini
Derek_final_v4
DerekDerekBoBerekBananaFanaFoFerek_1
Also, MaximumDerek
I use a naming convention for my homelab stuff that is descriptive enough for future reference in case I don’t touch the machine in a while.
<organization or domain><server type><sequence>
so for example if you have a local domain you use for internal work and the name is Leet Hax my naming would look something like this
leethax_prd01, leethax_prd02, leethax_proxmox01, leethax_nextcloud01, leethax_plex01
you get the idea, in my network I don’t add the underscore but I figured for explanation sakes I would here. I’m sure without explaining what each server is, whether it’s a VM from proxmox or an actual machine, you know what they are when they show up on your router. I added the sequence numbering for future proofing my self hosted setup in case I get another machine in the future.
I name my personal devices after Nasa projects and launches and my wife, well her phone is just called iPhone 1, 2, 3 etc. so everything is easy to spot on my home network.
My pixel is named iPhone… lol
Hahaha I started naming my things weird shit to throw people off but you took it to the next level, I’m definitely renaming my pixel too