I like that idea.

Post #157,506 by Silverlock 5/28/04 9:11:45 PM Reply	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
Post #157,540 by deSitter 5/29/04 10:39:05 AM Reply	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
Post #157,553 by jbrabeck 5/29/04 12:40:51 PM 5/29/04 12:41:06 PM Reply	Agree with Ross. Edited by jbrabeck May 29, 2004, 12:41:06 PM EDT Expand All History
Post #157,559 by pwhysall 5/29/04 1:54:09 PM Reply	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]
Post #157,567 by folkert 5/29/04 3:16:55 PM Reply	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!] @ *i_wethey* 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!
Post #157,577 by pwhysall 5/29/04 3:41:52 PM Reply	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]
Post #157,610 by folkert 5/29/04 5:57:25 PM Reply	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!] @ *i_wethey* 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!
Post #157,617 by boxley 5/29/04 6:42:36 PM Reply	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]
Post #157,668 by pwhysall 5/30/04 3:49:01 AM Reply	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]
Post #157,582 by deSitter 5/29/04 3:54:48 PM Reply	O peanut, I thee sledge -drl
Post #157,566 by Andrew Grygus 5/29/04 3:04:56 PM Reply	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]
Post #157,583 by deSitter 5/29/04 4:00:11 PM Reply	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
Post #157,587 by mmoffitt 5/29/04 4:03:44 PM Reply	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.
Post #157,600 by JayMehaffey 5/29/04 4:51:32 PM Reply	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
Post #157,603 by Andrew Grygus 5/29/04 5:14:18 PM Reply	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]
Post #157,666 by deSitter 5/30/04 2:18:00 AM Reply	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
Post #157,570 by folkert 5/29/04 3:27:01 PM Reply	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!] @ *i_wethey* 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!
Post #157,586 by deSitter 5/29/04 4:02:57 PM Reply	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
Post #157,611 by folkert 5/29/04 6:00:22 PM Reply	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!] @ *i_wethey* 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!
Post #157,588 by a6l6e6x 5/29/04 4:08:06 PM Reply	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
Post #157,596 by deSitter 5/29/04 4:44:50 PM Reply	Sure, like FCC ID -drl

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