Naming Conventions

domain/realm name

The cal network should have its own domain, for the purposes of simpler administration. the two top contenders for the choice of domain at the moment are astro.columbia.edu (which would mean taking over an existing domain, with all attendant hassle), or cal.columbia.edu (which would mean setting up a new domain and possibly moving some machines into that domain, with all attendant hassle)

user account names

According to fernando (from an e-mail from 25 Nov), right now the names can be just about anything, first names, last names, firstinitiallastnames, nicknames, whatever.

This lack of convention among usernames is fine as long as there is a straightforward and consistent policy for allocating and de-allocating them. An example policy could be: allocation is first come, first served. de-allocation is handled by disabling accounts, but the account name is never removed from the system.

dkg would prefer that usernames start with a lower case letter. and consist solely of lowercase letters and numbers. No such restrictions would apply to e-mail aliases.

machine names

machines also need names. policy for what they are named is not terribly important, as long as there is consistency for their allocation and de-allocation. It is also crucial that new machines can be given a permanent name before they are configured. Changing names after a full machine configuration is do-able, but can cause a lot of headaches.

dkg would also prefer that machine names start with a lowercase letter, and consist solely of lowercase letters and numbers.

The machine naming convention is going to be planets and ​satellites. the servers will be planets, and the workstations will be satellites (and asteroids, once we run out of satellites)