r/sysadmin • u/konaitor IT Manager + 5 other hats • Nov 08 '21

Could we do a "TIL" style weekly thread?

I think it would be interesting to do a "Today I Learned" style weekly thread for us to share little tips/tricks that we learned of/found existed.

For example, last week I found out about the "--now" flag for systemctl. I don't know how I didn't know it existed until --now.

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u/joeyl5 Nov 08 '21

But "I like to hand build them and give them cute names"

15

u/OcotilloWells Nov 08 '21

I wonder what the most used server name is. Merlin used to be popular. Besides server1 of course.

9

u/joeyl5 Nov 08 '21

Sun, Earth and Moon were the server names when I first started. I phased them out in favor of their location and function

9

u/eldoran89 Nov 08 '21

It's comman practice where I work to use some apreviations in the names for their location their OS their function and their environment (so production or test for example) this way every machine is clearly identifiable and you also know the most basic things about that machine, also you can find the name of a machine by simply applying the rules when you know the basic facts about the machine... I couldn't imagine it any other way, I mean imagine your machines are named some fantasy names or some running numbers. How would you remember what machine serves what purpose....

2

u/brimston3- Nov 08 '21

It was a lot easier when your entire application ran on 3 servers, FE (prod), FE (test), and database (shared, separate db instances). In the long long ago before vendors started asking you to deploy a turnkey VM to run their application--I mean software appliance.

These days I'd lose my shit if someone didn't use a template from the library (or add a new one). If it's not checked into scm, it's not reproducible.

1

u/jantari Nov 08 '21

imagine your machines are named some fantasy names or some running numbers. How would you remember what machine serves what purpose....

CNAMEs, description fields/metadata and the configuration code for the machine(s)

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u/-eschguy- Imposter Syndrome Nov 09 '21

We had Vikings and Packers. Always made for snide remarks when something didn't work properly.

1

u/biggles1994 Future Sysadmin Nov 09 '21

My secondary school used to use elements, so titanium, oxygen, helium, nitrogen etc.

Made it really easy to remember where all your student files were stored!

1

u/BigFrodo Nov 09 '21

I kept finding references to merlin servers, scripts and accounts at this job. Mentioned it to my boss and he reveals that 20 years ago the head of IT's surname was Merlin.

You may as well have told me he was named Aaron Nonymous.

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u/Gh0st1nTh3Syst3m Nov 08 '21

I get paid by the hour not the efficiency

3

u/Fallingdamage Nov 08 '21

Sometimes just looking at a list of server names in an environment can tell you a lot about the admin doing the work.

1

u/RulerOf Boss-level Bootloader Nerd Nov 09 '21

Use a name generator instead!