[nycbug-talk] Random Server name generator

[Siraaj Khandkar]

On Aug 1, 2012, at 3:58 PM, Mark Saad wrote:

> All
>  I wanted to share a bit of silly unix fun , here is how I pick new
> server hostnames.
> 
> /usr/games/random -f /usr/share/dict/web2 | head -n 1

Hah! This is an awesome idea for a web service! :)


> An old topic but always a relevant one, how do you name your servers,
> with logical names nybetaweb02 or
> memorable ones like "terraefilial"

I'm a big believer in the O'Reilly style naming (though not necessarily
animalistic) - I stare at the machine really hard and try to visualize what it
(even vaguely) reminds me of, so I end-up with pretty personalized and
endearing names. I've named my last three workstations:

- "storm" (it reminded me of a Strom Trooper)
- "beamer" (looked like BMW Z4 and I also do a lot of Erlang programming, who's VM is called BEAM)
- "alamo" (because it is square and all black)

For servers that all look the same and have identical roles - same procedure
plus they get sequential IDs appended, if they look the same but have different
(but still cooperative) roles - then they get two (or more) part names, first
part is something inanimate that it looks like, second part is a name of some
character (mostly from Star Wars) that performs a vaguely similar role:

- "kamino-lamasu" (virtualization host) http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Lama_Su
- "kamino-jocastanu" (file server) http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Jocasta_Nu



"There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation and naming things."
-- Phil Karlton


-- 
Siraaj Khandkar
.o.
..o
ooo