Naming Computers

From: Steven M Jones <classiccmp_at_crash.com>
Date: Tue Oct 22 11:53:00 2002

Well, I grabbed the domain crash.com in the Great Internet Domain
Name Land Grab of the early 90's. So when I'm naming machines, I
have an overpowering urge to use Unix signal names.

The firewall was Segv [.11], is now Hup [.1]; desktops have been
Buserr [.10] and Abort [.6]; web server is Fpe [.8]; main file-
server had to be Io [.23]. The higher numbered signals tend to
vary from one Unix flavor to another, unfortunately... This only
applies to working machines; collection machines are liable to
get boring names like different deities, different pantheon per
manufacturer. I know, I know, how predictable...

In a previous life as IT guy for a smallish ISV desktop machines
were named with input from the user, if they seemed likely to
have a good idea or insisted. Lab machines would typically be
named by vendor and sequence, as they were rotated/replaced on
something like a 12-18 month cycle. The two fileservers I put
together (to get them to stop cross-mounting everything!) got
named Inode and Vnode... External FTP server got named Beyond,
as I recall.

When we brought in a big team of developers and ordered their
machines on short notice, I went with another common theme:
T lines and stops (that's "subway" to those not in Boston ;^)
Servers became Redline, Greenline, etc. Machines became stops
on these lines (Alewife, Copley, Kenmore, Lechmere, etc). The
original plan had been stops for servers and nearby streets
for nodes, but we were rushed...

The name I'm still most fond of is the first machine I was
allowed to name. I started working in the VAX Resource Center
at MIT back in '89 and was handed a VAXstation II, some TK50's
and books, and told to learn VMS from a system managers point
of view (I'd been a user for a couple years). Since I was and
am a big fan of Buckaroo Banzai I called it Yoyodyne.mit.edu
(and YOYO::), and after I finished my VMS lessons it got
reloaded with Ultrix 3.x/UWS 2.x. I got a lot of complements
on the name; several people tried to tell me something about
this Thomas Pynchon guy, but I was more interested in reading
things by Henry Spencer or Rob Pike... ;^)


Ob. Tick quote:

        DO NOT:
        1. Eat in Lab
        2. Set Lab on Fire
        3. Innovate Unnecessarily
                -- Sign in Dinosaur Neil's Tent
                   "The Tick vs. Dinosaur Neil"

--Steve.

Steve Jones ...!uunet!crash.com!smj Arlington, Mass.
CRASH!! Computing (any spambots parse bang paths?) +1 781 MID BYTE

"Chaos will ensue if the variable i is altered..." - SysV Programmers Guide
Received on Tue Oct 22 2002 - 11:53:00 BST