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.
Now let your pants down and tell me all about
your embarrassing host names!
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I self-host for learning and fun. So I name my home servers with the car names.
Server Hostname car name RaspberryPi cooper Mini Cooper Old Laptop Raptor Ford F150 Raptor PC Hummer Hummer For my servers I try to use names from the Final Fantasy universe. Lately been focusing on FFXI end game bosses.
Kirin (opnsense firewall) Byakko (proxmox host) Tiamat (proxmox backup) Shiva (Nas)
The only clever virtual machine names I care to brag about are: DockBox (VM running docker) Jellxc (proxmox lxc running jellyfin)
I use the names of greek deities for my host names, mostly geared towards the function of the server/computer.
- Nyx (dark-blue laptop)
- Hypnos (gaming machine)
- Argus (pi-hole and reverse proxy)
- Prometheus (minecraft server)
My two wifi bands have always been Castor and Pollux.
I take a word that’s related to the purpose of the new host and put it in an online translator and cycle through languages until I get something cool.
What names has this process come up with?
Server (big iron): Bender
Desktop (main character): Fry
Laptop (for accounting): Hermes
Netbook (small and dumb): Nibbler
Phone (held to my head): BrainSlug
HTPC (one big viewport): Leela
This is my scheme as well! Pretty much to the t. Except my HTPC is hypnotoad and nibbler is my NAS.
OMG Hypnotoad HTPC is so much better! Why didn’t I thnnk of that?
My phone’s name is “Samsung Smart Fridge™” because I think it’s hilarious if someone is looking at hotspots or network info and go “what the hell is a fridge doing here-”
That’s hilarious. Now I wanna set up a Wi-Fi hotspot with that SSID at a local library or something for lulz.
Something like “LG Dishwasher”.
I just memorise the IPs lmao. then again I only have 1 or 2 hosts up on my network ever
Asterix & Obelix themed.
- Asterix is a rpi4, strong and small with ssd running dockers with homeassistant, revproxy and webserver, and camera storage.
- Idefix is a rpi3, mainly test only nowadays.
- Obelix is my desktop running voidlinux.
I used to have Pneumatix which is the mailman as the mail server and Panoramix, the druid, as domoticz server, Heroix, chief, as firewall and Bellefleur, beauty, as webserver 😉 All were LXD virtual servers on a pentium 3. I try to find a character matching the functionality. Except for domoticz all are now dockers on Asterix, so less use of funny names.
Non linux machines would be roman names from Asterix & Obelix, but I have none …
At work we used famous dogs. Laika, Pluto, Cerberus etc
I name my devices after greek gods based on what I’m going in life at the time or after what their purpose is.
I named my first gaming PC “Poseidon” when I was doing ship related work. Now it’s my server.
My gaming PC is “Asclepius”, the Greek god of healing. Built when I got into healthcare.
Hermes, god of messeges, is my lil pi that helps with routing (pihole, pivpn, nginx).
My HTPC is Dionysus, Greek god of wine and parties.
My thinkpad is Persephone cus it looks good but doesn’t do much. I might rename it.
The services that I run on these are just named “device-service” e.g. hermes-nginx
fuck, this is way better than my current naming scheme of "customer-<devicepurpose>, I’m stealing it for my next setup.
I do the same but Egyptian
I usually name my devices after Greek gods and godesses; Artemis, Hermes, Metis, Athena, Apollo etc.
Shit I thought I was so damn novel. Blast you.
Three-letter words that can be typed with one hand, since I have to type them frequently.
$ egrep "^([qwertasdfgzxcvb]{3}|[yuiophjkllnm]{3})$" /usr/share/dict/wordsUsername checks out
Yes, yours too.
? A and L are on opposite ends of the keyboard.
You have a mighty big hand if you reach l and a with the same one
Mine just moves 😉
This is the way.
Hmm, this wouldn’t work well for me since I use Dvorak. All the vowels are on the left and the most common consonants are on the right.
My consonant options on the left hand are: py (top) and jkxb (bottom).
MacBook Pro:
mbp.domain.com
Raspberry Pi 2:rpi2.domain.com
Raspberry Pi 3:rpi3.domain.com
Raspberry Pi 4:rpi4.domain.com
Raspberry Pi 5:rpi5.domain.com
(Yes, I have one of each.)
Synology DS415+:ds415.domain.com
Phone:iphone.domain.com
Watch:watch.domain.com
AppleTV:appletv.domain.com
Nintendo Switch:switch.domain.comI’m missing the rpi1 in that list. Please fix ASAP.
That one was called just
rpi.domain.com, but didn’t stand the test of time…
What happens if you add another RPi?
I might rename them. So, e.g. if I’d add another Pi5, the existing one would become
rpi5-1and the new onerpi5-2.
I envy you so much
Wait until I tell you about all the small issues this zoo of devices brings with it… haha.
I go for the unoriginal but oh so simple: location-type-No
So HL-SRV-01 is “homelab server no 1”
HS-DSK-02 is “House desktop no2”
NA-LPT-01 is “Not Applicable” because this is my admin laptop that I expect to move around a lot so I always treat it as high-risk.
I’ve named my last few computers after planets, with disks named after moons.
When I worked at Microsoft they had all kinds of clusters - OurGang with Spanky, Darla, Alfalfa… Addams with Gomez etc, Disney with Mickey, etc.
I’m similar, but it’s internal drives are planets, while external drives are moons.
When I run out of the solar system I’m going to move on to Star Wars.
Nice. I might copy your idea.
Same, all celestial names.
My home network is called The IT Clowd with these devices:
- Moss - physical server
- Roy - physical server
- Jen - vm - main docker host
- Richmond - vm - *arr stack
- Denholm - vm - management, monitoring
- Douglas - vm - Home Assistant stack
- Basement - vm - development server
Lol your arr stack.
"Jen what did you do?! I told you never open that door!"
