Post #157,386
5/28/04 10:05:44 AM
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Computer naming schemes.
Looking for ideas on naming computers in Active Directory for a large organization. Currently using the primary user's login name followed by OS type. The security team has raised alarms at this. We would like to be able to use the name in some manner to identify it's location, but it isn't mandatory. One idea I came up with was to use our existing location code (five characters) along with OS type and the user's phone extension. This has obvious shortcomings for our field staff.
Another idea was to keep the name non-identifying (serial number) and use the description field in the 'general' tab of AD users and computers properties to identify user name and location.
Anyone have a link to a 'best practices' study of this?
-----------------------------------------
It is much harder to be a liberal than a conservative. Why?
Because it is easier to give someone the finger than it is to give them a helping hand.
Mike Royko
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Post #157,416
5/28/04 11:30:15 AM
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having worked in large scale enterprises just a couple of
pointers consistancy with location. Unless everyone has a laptop, naming by UID would get confusing. Use something like 6E2046234 6 floor east cube 204 jack 6234. With multiple locations put the City code like LAX in the name.
thanx,
bill
Time for Lord Stanley to get a Tan
questions, help? [link|mailto:pappas@catholic.org|email pappas at catholic.org]
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Post #157,498
5/28/04 7:27:24 PM
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I named them the MAC address.
That way you could easily find WHERE they are based on the arp and so on. Or if your switches worked well you could trace to it's port.
Then it is just a matter of running down the port.
--
[link|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net|greg],
[link|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] @ iwethey
Give a man a match, he'll be warm for a minute.
Set him on fire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life!
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Post #157,506
5/28/04 9:11:45 PM
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I like that idea.
It'll be hard to sell though. Most of our support organization is scattered and has minimal rights on the network. The idea I'm trying to follow is what will work best for those who have to take the initial call.
-----------------------------------------
It is much harder to be a liberal than a conservative. Why?
Because it is easier to give someone the finger than it is to give them a helping hand.
Mike Royko
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Post #157,540
5/29/04 10:39:05 AM
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I don't
A computer should be named in a human-friendly way that indicates either the owner or the location. The MAC address conveys no new information (it can be gathered from the interface at will).
-drl
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Post #157,553
5/29/04 12:40:51 PM
5/29/04 12:41:06 PM
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Agree with Ross.
Edited by jbrabeck
May 29, 2004, 12:41:06 PM EDT
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Post #157,559
5/29/04 1:54:09 PM
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Concur.
Also, the MAC address is meaningless; you can change it on most cards these days.
Peter
[link|http://www.debian.org|Shill For Hire]
[link|http://www.kuro5hin.org|There is no K5 Cabal]
[link|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org|Blog]
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Post #157,567
5/29/04 3:16:55 PM
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Which is Exactly why I used the MAC address.
Changeable to keep it where it should be.
0FF1CE000001
CAFE01000001
0FF1CE018765
CAD37000F001
BADB0550F001
Assign a MAC to a cubicle. Easy peasy.
--
[link|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net|greg],
[link|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] @ iwethey
Give a man a match, he'll be warm for a minute.
Set him on fire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life!
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Post #157,577
5/29/04 3:41:52 PM
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Seems overengineered to me.,
Might as well just use "OFFICEDT001", "ENGPC002", etc.
In all my years of sysadmin I never had to use ARP to locate a machine physically - I got off my fat ass and LOOKED for it :)
Peter
[link|http://www.debian.org|Shill For Hire]
[link|http://www.kuro5hin.org|There is no K5 Cabal]
[link|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org|Blog]
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Post #157,610
5/29/04 5:57:25 PM
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Yeap...
Exactly. 19,000 students screwing the machines up, 2400 Computers in gangs of 30+, Master browser wars, napster traffic, RIP poisoning... You name it.
Now, try to find the culprits, most of the proggys used the machine names with fun activities. Arp lookup on routers and switches sometimes the only way to find them. Trace it down to the active port it was on. Then goto the closet trace the wire, to the patch, goto the room the patch went to, find that port... hence the machine.
Keeping Inventory is also many times more useful. (We used actual MACs though).
How many USERS and MACHINES were YOU talking about?
--
[link|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net|greg],
[link|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] @ iwethey
Give a man a match, he'll be warm for a minute.
Set him on fire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life!
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Post #157,617
5/29/04 6:42:36 PM
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My case 15k winders boxen nationwide
named by location floor cube jack xreffed with the static ip and mac addy and current assigned owner for inventory.
t make model and serial
hanx,
bill
Time for Lord Stanley to get a Tan
questions, help? [link|mailto:pappas@catholic.org|email pappas at catholic.org]
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Post #157,668
5/30/04 3:49:01 AM
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Re: Yeap...
Circa 400-ish computers, 200-ish users over two sites. Granted, my users weren't as wilfully destructive as yours :)
Peter
[link|http://www.debian.org|Shill For Hire]
[link|http://www.kuro5hin.org|There is no K5 Cabal]
[link|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org|Blog]
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Post #157,582
5/29/04 3:54:48 PM
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O peanut, I thee sledge
-drl
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Post #157,566
5/29/04 3:04:56 PM
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I never name them after users or jobs.
The moment they're all named, musical chairs is played and the users want the name of their hated predecessor expunged and their own name put in place. Then you have to go around and change the drive/printer assignments all over the place, and two weeks later it's musical chairs again..
I use animal names (Bear, Badger, Gerbil etc), trees (Oak, Walnut, Maple, etc.), or fish (Trout, Pike, Walleye, etc.) or some combination (perhaps servers are animals, users are trees). People seem to have little trouble remembering these names and where they are.
When the boss insists on having his computer named after himself, two months later the shipping department has a computer with the bosses name and he wonders why he can't name his new computer after himself.
Of course I deal with small businesses (3 to 30 computers) - this probably wouldn't work in a large installation without some prefixes.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
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Post #157,583
5/29/04 4:00:11 PM
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Re: I never name them after users or jobs.
In a large org the names are often based on the IOmail address. That made the most sense IMO.
-drl
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Post #157,587
5/29/04 4:03:44 PM
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Heh.
Years ago I used trees for the IT department I worked in (small shop, 15 IT workers). The boss got ticked at me because I named his machine "Locust". He said, "I know you think you're being cute naming my machine Locust. Change it - today."
He was obviously a little brighter than I gave him credit for.
bcnu,
Mikem
If you can read this, you are not the President.
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Post #157,600
5/29/04 4:51:32 PM
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Theme names
One big company we did work for at my last job had theme names. Each cluster of computers had a theme and each computer was named to match the theme.
The servers we maintained where "North Pole" and had computers named Rudolf, Blitzen, Dancer and Dasher. There was also a group called "Pet Farm" which had cow, pig, goat.
Following their pattern, we named our development computers Hades, Tartarus and Pluto.
Jay
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Post #157,603
5/29/04 5:14:18 PM
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I've always cautioned to be careful with names.
For instance "Beaver" is restricted to server appliances that will never become workstation assigned to the boss's snazzy young daughter, just hired.
At one place, one of the girls was in some kind of accident and both her eyes were black and blue. From that point on nobody ever forgot that "Raccoon" was her workstation.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
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Post #157,666
5/30/04 2:18:00 AM
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Re: I've always cautioned to be careful with names.
At one former job the DB programmers adopted STNG as their theme. One guy annoyed me to no end so I punk'd him. I patched his COMMAND.COM to call my own batch file instead of AUTOEXEC.BAT. My file edited his WfW machine name, so that at each boot he came up as "WESLEY". He'd change it and back it'd go the next day.
My batch file would chain AUTOEXEC.BAT so changes made there would still work. Needless to say, he was perplexed.
-drl
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Post #157,570
5/29/04 3:27:01 PM
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Sure... good reason TO use it. Thanks.
The MAC address conveys no new information (it can be gathered from the interface at will) Exactly. What a great reason, gathering the info at will. --
[link|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net|greg],
[link|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] @ iwethey
Give a man a match, he'll be warm for a minute.
Set him on fire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life!
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Post #157,586
5/29/04 4:02:57 PM
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Re: Sure... good reason TO use it. Thanks.
You know as well as I do that any sane network will be browsable by name. Putzing with the MA is nerdurge overkill.
Excess nerding is why so many tech people in their 40s have no jobs.
-drl
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Post #157,611
5/29/04 6:00:22 PM
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I don't want to get into a pissing war.
But look at my reply to Peter. [link|/forums/render/content/show?contentid=157610|Post #157610]
And please quit being antagonistic.
Yes a sane network, but when insane things happen, sometimes you have to use other ways.
--
[link|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net|greg],
[link|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] @ iwethey
Give a man a match, he'll be warm for a minute.
Set him on fire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life!
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Post #157,588
5/29/04 4:08:06 PM
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Re: MAC address conveys no new information.
Actually it does. It tells you [link|http://standards.ieee.org/regauth/ethertype/type-pub.html|who made the NIC]. The IEEE registers them.
Alex
Honor has not to be won; it must only not be lost. -- Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), German philosopher
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Post #157,596
5/29/04 4:44:50 PM
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Sure, like FCC ID
-drl
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Post #157,593
5/29/04 4:35:29 PM
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When I named computers
We kept a list of the system names in a database indexed with the people who used those computers, so we had an idea of who could possibly be using the system in question.
Use a name like so:
Department Code
Building Code
Primary User's First Initial
Six letters of the Primary User's Last Name
Number of OS version
Aux Number (If one machine it is 1, if the second machine it is 2, etc)
So Orion Blastar in building 6, in the IT department, running Windows 2000, on his second workstation would be:
IT_06_OBLASAT_2000_2
That way you knew what department the machine was in and what building, who the primary user might be, and what OS it uses, and what machine it was.
Naming it:
Aries324
OBLASTAR2
IT_2000
$MacAddress
Is meaningless, unless you put all that data into a database to see the info on the system, and then can look it up.
Now if a system is reassigned or moved, it must be renamed.
"What's the use of saving life when you see what you do with it?" - Corbin Dallas "The Fifth Element"
[link|http://www.xormad.com:4096/district268|I am from District 268].
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Post #158,854
6/7/04 3:45:57 PM
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Planets, car names, table of elements, movie and book chars
Granted these were at smaller companies 25-300 or so systems. At one company I was using the table of elements. I tried to use some of the shorter cooler sounding names for the servers since those names were typed more often. The other names would go on workstations which weren't referenced as much. I did save one element name for a while to finally give to someone who usually annoyed the hell out of me. Any guesses? Hehe he was quite pissed about it but there wasn't anything he could do because it was legit. :-p
lister
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Post #158,855
6/7/04 3:52:02 PM
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Ineptium?
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Post #158,861
6/7/04 4:23:54 PM
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I only used the real element names, no made up ones
lister
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Post #158,856
6/7/04 3:54:10 PM
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Dubnium? Bohrium?
===
Implicitly condoning stupidity since 2001.
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Post #158,865
6/7/04 4:51:59 PM
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Boron?
Imric's Tips for Living
- Paranoia Is a Survival Trait
- Pessimists are never disappointed - but sometimes, if they are very lucky, they can be pleasantly surprised...
- Even though everyone is out to get you, it doesn't matter unless you let them win.
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Nothing is as simple as it seems in the beginning,
As hopeless as it seems in the middle,
Or as finished as it seems in the end.
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Post #158,867
6/7/04 5:01:45 PM
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DING!
lister
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Post #158,949
6/8/04 5:35:22 AM
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That IS "Bohrium", kinda, AFAIK: It's named for Niels Bohr.
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Post #158,950
6/8/04 6:38:28 AM
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..........
Name: boron
Symbol: B
Atomic number: 5
Standard state: solid at 298 K
Colour: black
Classification: Semi-metallic
Name: bohrium
Symbol: Bh
Atomic number: 107
* Standard state: presumably a solid at 298 K
* Colour: unknown, but probably metallic and silvery white or grey in appearance
* Classification: Metallic
Bohrium is a synthetic element that is not present in the environment at all. The German discoverers at GSI proposed the name Nielsbohrium (symbol Ns) after Niels Bohr. IUPAC are happy to name an element after Bohr but suggest bohrium (Bh) on the grounds that the first name of a person does not appear in the names of any other element named after a person. This seems to have been accepted by all concerned.
...copied from webelements.com
Imric's Tips for Living
- Paranoia Is a Survival Trait
- Pessimists are never disappointed - but sometimes, if they are very lucky, they can be pleasantly surprised...
- Even though everyone is out to get you, it doesn't matter unless you let them win.
|
Nothing is as simple as it seems in the beginning,
As hopeless as it seems in the middle,
Or as finished as it seems in the end.
|
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Post #158,951
6/8/04 7:12:55 AM
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This is why....
CRC is a conslutant and not a chemist :-)
Peter
[link|http://www.debian.org|Shill For Hire]
[link|http://www.kuro5hin.org|There is no K5 Cabal]
[link|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org|Blog]
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Post #158,952
6/8/04 7:20:27 AM
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Re: ..........
A "boron" is a quantum of Win32. Exchange of virtual borons is what repels a sane person from Windows.
-drl
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Post #158,953
6/8/04 7:22:37 AM
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Nononono.
Borons are the particles that are emitted from people who argue about the minutiae of American politics.
They have no harmful effects, unless you count an irresistible urge to Mark Topic Read as harmful :-)
Peter
[link|http://www.debian.org|Shill For Hire]
[link|http://www.kuro5hin.org|There is no K5 Cabal]
[link|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org|Blog]
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Post #158,963
6/8/04 9:48:38 AM
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ROFL!
Imric's Tips for Living
- Paranoia Is a Survival Trait
- Pessimists are never disappointed - but sometimes, if they are very lucky, they can be pleasantly surprised...
- Even though everyone is out to get you, it doesn't matter unless you let them win.
|
Nothing is as simple as it seems in the beginning,
As hopeless as it seems in the middle,
Or as finished as it seems in the end.
|
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Post #158,960
6/8/04 8:22:48 AM
6/8/04 8:24:28 AM
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Oh - then WTF is boron named for?
Aha -- "[link|http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/sci/A0808388.html|New Gr. from borax]".
And, "...first isolated in England in 1807 by Sir Humphry Davy...", yadda yadda; no, that doesn't seem to have anything to do with Niels.
Looks like I larnt sumpin today, too.
Thanks!
[Edit: Un-fucking-bleievable, but truly the LRPDism I got after posting: "Who are you, who are so wise in the ways of science?"]
[link|mailto:MyUserId@MyISP.CountryCode|Christian R. Conrad]
(I live in Finland, and my e-mail in-box is at the Saunalahti company.)
Your lies are of Microsoftian Scale and boring to boot. Your 'depression' may be the closest you ever come to recognizing truth: you have no 'inferiority complex', you are inferior - and something inside you recognizes this. - [link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=71575|Ashton Brown]
Edited by CRConrad
June 8, 2004, 08:24:28 AM EDT
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Post #159,107
6/8/04 7:50:06 PM
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But you must admit bohrium would be more dense. :)
Alex
Honor has not to be won; it must only not be lost. -- Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), German philosopher
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