What naming conventions do you all use for your various VM's? I assume a number of people using VM's are in a home setting where you can call them whatever you want. Mine are all synonyms for castles or fortifications:

 

tower (obviously)

rampart

citadel

fortress

 

Do you prefer to give a more general name? Do you prefer to name based on function? I'm just curious

:)

 

I simply name them what they are ... e.g. "Mandriva", "Knoppix", "Win98", "Win2000", "WinXP-Home", "WinXP-Pro", "Win7-Pro", "Vista-Ultimate", ...

 

For the network names, I append VM ... i.e. my "XP for Browsing" virtual machine is "XP4BrowsingVM" on the network.

 

You can obviously call them whatever you want.    Using synonyms for castles is fine.  My main (non-VM) machines are all named from Star Trek [Enterprise, Kirk, Spock, Chekhov, etc.]

 

I like the idea of having non-descriptive names because it means I can repurpose them without making the names meaningless.

FWIW, the naming conventions also extend to my desktop and laptops. They're named after siege weapons.

I name them after their FQDN's, i.e. my unRAID box is orion.mars.net.au

 

 

I tend to name them after their function. Ex: DC01, EXCH01, SQL01, NAS01, PIAF, etc.

My Servers are all names from the show Andromeda

 

My laptop and other devices on the network named for the show "Gilmore Girls" (don't ask... girlfriend got ahold of it one day and I never bother changing stuff back)

Mine are all ancient Norse mythology names, Valhalla, Æsir, Yggdrasil, etc. The one exception is my unRaid server, named Landfill, purely for the amount of junk that it collects over time.

ESXi server name is Saturn.  All the VMs are moons of Saturn (Titan, Pandora, Janus, etc.).

I didn't get fancy (some times wish I was more creative).  Media1, Media2, unRAIDServer(should be Media0), ATSCServer, HDServer, SageTVSrv, ServerWHS (WHSv1), Online, Financial, MySQL, CyberPower (CyberPower UPS appliance), BluRayRips (VirtualBox VM on Win7 box where BluRay drive exists), Win8Virt(Virtual Box VM on Win7 box - since I'm on 5.0 ESXi which doesn't work with Win8).  No names for ESXi servers themselves - known by their IPs only.

I use a combination of GaryCase's names for Machines with interactive/development access and a Combination of names as StevenD for servers.

 

In my company it is prefixed with the group who owns it, a designation (like StevenD) of the usage and suffixed with Architecture.

For clusters, there is always an alias that will float between the very specific machine names.

ESXi server name is Saturn.  All the VMs are moons of Saturn (Titan, Pandora, Janus, etc.).

 

Very fitting!

ESXi server name is Saturn.  All the VMs are moons of Saturn (Titan, Pandora, Janus, etc.).

 

Very fitting!

 

Agree ... that's a pretty slick idea.    As long as you don't have more than 53 VMs 

 

... your "Landfill" name is also nicely chosen.    Definitely appropriate for all of us packrats who fill our servers with anything and everything !!

 

ESXi server name is Saturn.  All the VMs are moons of Saturn (Titan, Pandora, Janus, etc.).

 

Very fitting!

 

Agree ... that's a pretty slick idea.    As long as you don't have more than 53 VMs 

 

... your "Landfill" name is also nicely chosen.    Definitely appropriate for all of us packrats who fill our servers with anything and everything !!

 

Exactly!  I had to deviate from my standard naming convention because Landfill was just too appropriate.

My ESXi server pretty much just named itself because compared to all my other cases it was a big mofo...and being headless it was blind.

 

I use Greek mythology names.

Unraid is Hercules, the hero

My usenet vm is Orion, the hunter

My admin vm is Zeus, god of gods

SQL is Apollo, God of arts

And so on... 

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2

 

 

 

I use Greek mythology names.

Unraid is Hercules, the hero

My usenet vm is Orion, the hunter

My admin vm is Zeus, god of gods

SQL is Apollo, God of arts

And so on... 

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2

I like this!

 

I use Greek mythology names.

Unraid is Hercules, the hero

My usenet vm is Orion, the hunter

My admin vm is Zeus, god of gods

SQL is Apollo, God of arts

And so on... 

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2

 

That's funny, me too, kinda...my unRaid is Apollo; being a media server and Apollo being the god of music and such...I also have Hermes, Ares and Nike.

I'm boring as hell.

Unraid VM is unraid

Ubuntu Server VM is ubuntu

pfSense VM is pfsense

TVHeadEnd VM is tvheadend

SBS 2011VM is sbs2011

 

 

 

 

I'm boring as hell.

Unraid VM is unraid

Ubuntu Server VM is ubuntu

pfSense VM is pfsense

TVHeadEnd VM is tvheadend

SBS 2011VM is sbs2011

 

Not boring, just concise.  At least you'll never forget which is which; a pitfall in any arbitrarily named system

I guess my server naming isn't that meaningful, just liked the sound of them:

 

Tin: KLAATU (ESXI production host),  BARADA (unRAID backup)

Ubuntu VMs: JADZIA, NERYS, KEIKO

My current crop of machines and VMs are all named after nuclear tests, nuclear weapons, or associated topics.

 

Previous file server (WHS v1) was Little Boy.

ESXi server is Trinity.

unRAID VM is Tsar Bomba.

IP Camera VM is Necessary Evil.

Backup VM (WHS 2011) is Thin Man.

ZFS test VM (OI) is Enduring Stockpile.

Domain Controller and IIS test VM is Walleye.

SageTV/Plex server is Starfish Prime.

Desktop is Fat Man.

Old laptop was Bockscar.

Current laptop is Castle Bravo.

HTPC is Davy Crockett.

I also have a hardware test setup named Ivy Mike (whenever it's in an operative state).

 

The previous generation was all named after different terms for large weather systems (hurricane, typhoon, etc.). No idea what I'll do for the next generation (still have years left in my current setups).

My laptop and other devices on the network named for the show "Gilmore Girls" (don't ask... girlfriend got ahold of it one day and I never bother changing stuff back)

 

Likely story! It's ok to tell the truth, we won't judge much.

 

My current crop of machines and VMs are all named after nuclear tests, nuclear weapons, or associated topics.

 

Previous file server (WHS v1) was Little Boy.

ESXi server is Trinity.

unRAID VM is Tsar Bomba.

IP Camera VM is Necessary Evil.

Backup VM (WHS 2011) is Thin Man.

ZFS test VM (OI) is Enduring Stockpile.

Domain Controller and IIS test VM is Walleye.

SageTV/Plex server is Starfish Prime.

Desktop is Fat Man.

Old laptop was Bockscar.

Current laptop is Castle Bravo.

HTPC is Davy Crockett.

I also have a hardware test setup named Ivy Mike (whenever it's in an operative state).

 

The previous generation was all named after different terms for large weather systems (hurricane, typhoon, etc.). No idea what I'll do for the next generation (still have years left in my current setups).

 

Love it!

My laptop and other devices on the network named for the show "Gilmore Girls" (don't ask... girlfriend got ahold of it one day and I never bother changing stuff back)

 

Likely story! It's ok to tell the truth, we won't judge much.

I think my downfall was admitting to her that I liked the show... and Alexis Bledel did not hurt the scenery any.