A couple of naming schemes for my servers

sysadmin

I like naming my servers, just like I name my Pokémon. 👨‍💻 Not every server gets a cute name, if they are virtualized I tend to use a much more mechanical name. However, for my homelab I have a number of physical machines. These machines I take care of much more, like pets. And all good pets require good names.

Virtualization

Some of these servers are part of my virtualization cluster. These are bare metal servers and host other servers that are kinda unreal. This is the inspiration of my first scheme: virtualization hosts are named after mythical or other fantastical metals 🤖. Here's a list of metals my servers are named, that I feel are distinct enough to avoid confusion, along with the source material.

  • adamantium, from X-Men
  • australium, from Team Fortress 2
  • carbonite, from Star Wars
  • darksteel, from Magic: The Gathering
  • dilithium, from Star Trek
  • etherium, from Magic: The Gathering
  • kryptonite, from Superman
  • metal-slime, from Dragon Quest
  • mithril, from every fantasy series
  • naqahdah, from Star Gate: SG-1
  • octarine, from Dota 2 and Discworld
  • orichalcum, from every fantasy series
  • redstone, from Minecraft
  • scarletite, from Final Fantasy
  • starmetal, from Fallout, Elder Scrolls, and D&D
  • tritanium, from Star Trek
  • vibranium, from Marvel Comics

That's 17 names of servers. I hope that would be enough to cover all of the machines I own now (5), and into the future. If I ever get 18 or more servers in my cluster, I have lots of problems. I shouldn't ever get to that point.

Utility ARM single-board computers

On the opposite spectrum of a machine meant for the virtualization cluster, I also have a number of utility computers around my apartment as part of the homelab. The original ones in this group were Raspberry Pis, so I developed this naming scheme with those in mind. Every one of these computers are named after a pie 🥧. In particular ones more popular in the United States, where I grew up.

  • apple-pie
  • blueberry-pie
  • caramel-pie
  • cherry-pie
  • chocolate-pie
  • custard-pie
  • grasshopper-pie
  • key-lime-pie
  • meat-pie
  • meringue-pie
  • peanut-butter-pie
  • pecan-pie
  • pumpkin-pie
  • raspberry-pie
  • turtle-pie

I only own 4 right now, so this list should also hopefully cover my future needs.

What about you?

What is your naming scheme? Make sure you have one, any one. A consistent scheme is much easier to remember and interpret at a later date. Failing that, at least make sure each server has it's purpose documented in a central wiki.

|