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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Hello!
Well I’m having the following hostnames on my LAN:
- betelgeuse (Beelink server with Proxmox)
- altair (an another Beelink server with Proxmox)
- eudora (outgoing SMTP server)
- polaris (my laptop)
- epsilon (my desktop)
Have fun!
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 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 just memorise the IPs lmao. then again I only have 1 or 2 hosts up on my network ever
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?
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
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?
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.
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.
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).
My devices are cringely named after songs in Haken’s discography.
Desktop is MESSIAH. Laptop is AFFINITY. Phone is NIGHTINGALE. Steam Deck is SHAPESHIFTER. Router (and its WAP) is PORTALS. My NAS is the only one that falls outside of this, it’s generically (last name)NetNAS. I should rename it, but I don’t want to break anything 😅
Eta: changed my NAS’ hostname is ARCHITECT. Nothing broke! Yay for me.
This is my favorite of the thread.
You can even call one Host, haha.
Shit, you’re right!
Sounds like a good option for a VPS.
Fedora is called fed. Ubuntu is ubu. Laptop is laptop 🌝
Naming scheme like John Wick with his dog.
What happens if you decide to use Fedora or Ubuntu on two devices?
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”.
Huh. I thought for sure someone else would be using my scheme.
LAN computers are all Tolkien swords: sting, orcrist, gurthang, glamdring, etc. If I run out of swords, I’ll start adding other weapons: aeglost, the spear; dailir, the arrow. We don’t get a lot of named battle axes, which I always thought weird; I’d think dwarves of all people would forge legendary axes, and certainly name them.
My WiFi and VPN networks are forests in Middle Earth: fangorn, bindbole, dimholt, lothlorien, etc. The only exception is my LAN itself which is… “lan”. Because short.
My cloud VPSes are named after Greek Titans: hyperion, phaethusa, tethys, etc.
Mobile devices have whatever names they come with, because they’re so ephemeral.
I like your schema. I’ve used something similar. My hosts have always been sci-fi space/time ships/stations, user accounts are characters from or Captain’s of said vessels. Over the years I’ve had a TARDIS, Serenity, Moya, Out of Bands II, Galactica, Millennium Falcon, Rocinante, etc. It’s usually whatever I happen to be discovering or binging at the time I setup the machine. For nearly a decade the TARDIS was my server/NAS because it was bigger on the inside that survived through several generations of smaller devices like laptops and raspberry Pi’s named after smaller lighter vessels like Serenity and Rocinante.
Thanks! I’ve learned in jobs over the years that there are two good ways to choose names:
- Descriptive acronyms: AppDev01Loc01. They’re useful in business and large teams, and dull as shit. But practical.
- Mythos with a lot of variation. Characters from your favorite novel is usually bad, because you quickly run out of names. Mythos are usually good, dinosaurs… anything with a lot of variation.
“Sci fi starships” is a great one! Lots of source material there; the categories basically fall out by themselves. That’s a great choice.
In the past, I used Gimli’s family tree for server names. My main server was called “Thorin”. I think I had used Thrain and Gloin.
These days I use Union generals from the civil war:
Sherman - NAS, media server, nextcloud. Thomas - reverse proxy, adguard1. Ellsworth - arr stack. Sheridan - backup server. dockerhost01 - because naming your servers after their function makes a lot more sense.
In the past, I used Gimli’s family tree for server names.
Oh, that’s good.
Middle Earth is a great source for this stuff, b/c Tolkien filled out the world like a historian.
Desktop: HAL9000
laptop: HALjr
Phone: HALnano
Then HALserver, HALprinter (octoprint), HALhome (home assistant) and so on… Big fan of Stanley Kubrick haha
Tried to get the hal9.ooo domain name but it was taken…
Edit: I use Dave as the username, so that in the terminal it is dave@hal9000, which just seems appropriate
My PC was HAL_9000 for over a decade. It got tedious to type, so it’s now just “box.”
Ha I like it. Yeah I skipped the underscore/hyphen for that reason.
