RFC 1178 and server naming

4 Oct 2011

Whenever I come across servers with names like chpvuat01, I’m reminded of RFC 1178 “Choosing a name for your computer”. Especially when ch stands for crack house, pv stands for paid verbiage, but uat doesn’t stand for user acceptance testing: the box used to be in UAT, was moved to SIT (System Integration Testing), but kept it’s old name because renaming it would be too hard.

From the RFC:
Using a word that has strong semantic implications in the current context will cause confusion.** Don’t choose a name after a project unique to that machine.

Name machines after D&D characters, LOTR characters, planets, flowers, animals, whatever, but not their function!**
**

(Hostname has been obfuscated to protect the not-so-innocent, though the project may as well be called crack house).

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