Naming Conventions

Even hostnames can be a form of communication, albeit a very subtle one. Hostnames should be as self-documenting as possible, so you can determine the purpose of any machine on your network just from its name alone.

System and network administrators tend to name devices on their network according to the following three conventions:

  • Functional naming conventions are useful for devices that have specific purposes—a Web server, for example, or a DNS server. You might name your Web servers web1, web2, and web3, while your name servers are called ns1 and ns2. These names clearly indicate the function of each system while uniquely identifying each individual machine.

  • Geographical naming is useful in organizations with multiple physical ...

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