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.
The printer’s name is Marvin, from HHGTTG.
It never wants to work and always complains.
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?
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?
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 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
Mine are named after the penguins from the Madagascar movie : Skipper, Private, Kowalski, and Rico.
Unfortunately there’s only four so I often supplement with a suffix. For example, I’ve got an old windows laptop kicking around that is “rico-w”
… I should really commit to a naming scheme with a wider array of options.
Why limit yourself to the penguins?
All my hostnames are after Zen Buddhist concepts, like shikaku, hongaku, mushin, wuwei, jiyu, etc. My printer is the only thing that breaks this trend, it is named pos
Why not Saṃsāra? Or maybe it’s Rin’ne in Japanese?
I have been saving that one for when I get a framework laptop
I named mine after Rocket League cars.
- Octane (main desktop)
- Breakout (laptop)
- Dominus (laptop; older, larger)
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.
You have a mighty big hand if you reach l and a with the same one
Mine just moves 😉
? A and L are on opposite ends of the keyboard.
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).
This is the way.
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
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 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.
