Hi fellow selfhosters!
What hostnames do you use for your systems and services?
And maybe why if it’s an interesting story.
I’ll start:
Steam Deck: krax
Smartphone: krix (once I get LineageOS installed again)
MiniPC: krux
Reserved for future use: krex & krox
Creative, I know. 😅 The names have no deeper meaning. The x comes from Linux. That’s it.
I know some of you use god names of certain pantheons, such as Thor. But I find that boring as a lot of people are doing that.
After a long career in tech, one of the things I start to push for when I inevitably take over ops at my new job is to eliminate the silly names.
I don’t do it because I hate fun, I do it because when someone yells, “Squirtle has dropped off the network!” I don’t want to have to go consult a lookup table to learn that Squirtle is a staging environment postgres replica and not the primary billing database.
As a result, I apply the same standards to my home network without shame.
It’s the right move.
I tell you, the first time you’re sat in front of a CEO and an auditor and you have to explain why the big list of servers has a highlighted one called C-NT-PRIK-5 is when the fun stops.
Explaining that it’s short for ‘customer network tester Mr. Prickles 5’, and is actually a cacti server never really seems to help the situation.
At least a few of the customers got a laugh out of it being on the reports!