this post was submitted on 07 Mar 2025
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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. πŸ˜… 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. Β 
Β 
Β 

Now let your pants down and tell me all about

your embarrassing host names!

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago

Used to be names from Neuromancer like "ono-sendai" and variations of that.

Now laptop is "flat", server is named after it's purpose like log, mail, mon, hosting, storage, etc.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago

Every computer I own is an autobot. My primary machine is always Optimus Prime, has been since 2008. Other machines get other names generally slightly inspired by their role / nature. Bumblebee and CliffJumper are miniPCs of various persuasions, Preceptor is my "mess around with AI" box, my big server that handles most of my data and network services is Wheeljack, my Macbook is Mirage, my backup server is Powerglide, my TV (which is an old Dell all in One running Linux Mint) is UltraMagnus.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago

References to The Dark Tower or Murakami characters.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

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 πŸ˜‰ 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

[–] piranhaphish 5 points 4 hours ago

The printer's name is Marvin, from HHGTTG.

It never wants to work and always complains.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

Why not SaαΉƒsāra? Or maybe it's Rin'ne in Japanese?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 hours ago

Rock types and Greek gods. Everything from emerald to Aphrodite.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 hours ago

I have pebble, pabble, pibble, rebble, rabble, ribble and nibble.

Though the primary server is old enough that it was from a time when I named everything after Transformers, so it's Shockwave.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

My little pony. My pihole is pinkypie, mediaserver trottingham, homeassistant is ponyville, and my backup server is canterlot. And so on... :)

[–] FunkFactory 2 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

pretty new setup but so far I've got

symmetra - synology dsm (nas)
junkrat - intel nuc main server

need to name my desktop/laptop now and maybe networking gear. thinking ramattra for the router and zenyatta for the bridge

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 hours ago

I Used Gondolin for my PC but after reinstalling I didn't put it back on and left the default

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 hours ago

For my ProxMox server stuff I went with Lord of the Rings. The idea being the servers would be locations and the VMs would characters.

So right now my main server is Rivendell, and my PiHole on it is Gandalf ("You shall not pass!" Heehee eventually he'll have OPNSense too...)

If I get HomeAssistant at some point, obviously that'll be Samwise!

My Klipper VM for 3D printing is Celebrimbor, and the individual printers are named after various deities or myth figures of crafting/smithing/creativity like Brigid and Eitri.

For my client devices, I name my personal hardware after BattleTech mechs and that works well. It's intuitive because I can line up various roles and weight classes.

So my main desktop is Timberwolf, and my laptops are named after light mechs like Kitfox or Mistlynx.

Phones and tablets I don't really care about, they usually just name themselves after their model anyway. :)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 hours ago

Naming my devices after stars. Specifically stars in Ursa-Major

Desktop: alioth Laptop: alkaid Smartphone: alcor SteamDeck: dubhe Server: sarir

[–] clif 5 points 8 hours ago

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.

[–] victorz 6 points 9 hours ago

I named mine after Rocket League cars.

  • Octane (main desktop)
  • Breakout (laptop)
  • Dominus (laptop; older, larger)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 hours ago

I go for the unoriginal but oh so simple: location-type-No

So HL-SRV-01 is "homelab server no 1"

HS-DSK-02 is "House desktop no2"

NA-LPT-01 is "Not Applicable" because this is my admin laptop that I expect to move around a lot so I always treat it as high-risk.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

localhost

Why: for privacy/anonymity concerns

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (1 children)

Hmm, what does localhost.local do if you use mdns?

Also, your router must be a bit confusing:

  • localhost - 192.168.1.2
  • localhost - 192.168.1.3
  • ...
[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago

Fixes IP for me, but I admit I don't have a lot of services to access to like OP does

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