Naming hosts on your network

The purpose of using names for hosts is to provide a quick, easy, and unambiguous way to refer to the computers in your network. Internet system administrators have discovered that there are good, as well as poor, choices for host names. These suggestions are intended to help you avoid common pitfalls in choosing host names.

The following are some suggestions for choosing unambiguous, easy to remember host names:

• Terms that are rarely used, for example, sphinx or eclipse.
• Theme names, such as colors, elements (for example, helium, argon, or zinc), flowers, fish, and others.
• Real words (as opposed to random strings of characters).

The following are some examples of poor choices. In general, these are poor choices because they are difficult to remember or are confusing (either to humans or computers):

• Terms that are already in common use, for example, up, down, or crash.
• Names containing only numbers.
• Names that contain punctuation marks.
• Names that rely on case distinction, for example, Orange and orange.
• The name or initials of the primary user of the system.
• Names having more than 8 characters.
• Unusual or purposefully incorrect spellings, for example, czek, which could be confused with "check" or "czech."
• Names that are, or resemble, domain names, for example, yale.edu.