Naming the Nameservers

[Cedric Puddy]

On 24 Aug 1999 alexk at tugger.net wrote:

> > Well, this time you win. Hands down ....
> > Seriously: you are right. It is not obvious to which machine does
> > what. I am myself a sysadmin and I have this kind of problems.
> 
> > However I do insist that the naming is sometimes a clue for hackers. 
> > No clear solution, anyway...
> > cmic
> 
> Mnemonics always work.  Mail server names start with an 'M'.  IRC
> servers start with an 'I'.  Web servers start with a 'W'.  Servers that
> provide more than one service defeat the naming scheme altogether.  I'm
> going back to bed.  -- Alex Kamantauskas alexk at tugger.net

One solution that I have seen and liked works like this:

	<type_letter><div/owner_3characters><location><desc>.blahblah.com

The <type_letter> is one of "H" (host - any kind of server), "P"
(print server), "S" (switch/managable hub), "W" (workstation/pc),
"R" (router/bridge management addr, etc), and a couple others.

The <div/owner> is a three char code that indicated either
who owned the box or which divisions' box it was.

The <location> was a three char code that indicated whee the
box was, based on nearest major airport.  eg: something near
Toronto would have "YKF", and something near Los Angeles would
have "LAX".  Useful for widely distributed networks.  Easy
for airline industry people, but possibly difficult for others.

<desc> was a "free form" description. eg: "tonysmith".

It was in use on a large distributed network, and worked well.

Allowance was made for having local shortcuts in the DNS, which
made the full names not as necessary for day to day typing.
Mostly by making it easy for people to request that a shortcut
be created.


-Cedric


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