Equipment DNS naming sheme

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Contents

DECISION

The poll has been finished with the participation of four persons and the winner is:

sonar#.town.domain


Summary

Goal of this document is to find a unique naming scheme for the equipment installed for JRA1. Several proposals were made, no decision has been taken up to now.

Concerning the domain name, there was the idea use only one: geant.net, this has the main disadvantage, that you can´t reverse lookup this addresses, as they are not directly in the GÉANT network. Also this unique name implies, that the measurements are carried out inbetween one network, not between different networks.

So the names should contain the domain name and/or a functional description of the box.

Two main ideas are left:

  • based on functionality

Example:

owd1.london.geant.net
ab1.london.geant.net 

disadvantage: when functionality changes, box name has to change.

  • based on location with a uniqe identifier:

Example:

sonar1.amsterdam.surf.net
sonar2.amsterdam.surf.net

So please select your favorite in the next paragraph!

Poll


PRO functionality

like:

owd1.london.geant.net
ab1.london.geant.net

PLEASE INSERT YOUR NAME:
Loukik Kudarimoti (DANTE)

PRO location based, no functionality

like:

sonar1.amsterdam.surf.net
sonar2.amsterdam.surf.net

PLEASE INSERT YOUR NAME:

Stephan Kraft (DFN Erlangen)
Jochen Reinwand (DFN Erlangen)
Nicolas Simar (Dante)

Former discussion: "Proposals for future naming"


Existing names

In GN1Y4, we installed some boxes for IPPM measurements called:

pm1.de.geant.net in Germany

pm1.rm1.garr.net in Italy

ippm1.man.poznan.pl for Poland

pm1.il.geant.net for Israel

ippm.renater.fr for France.


Initial Idea

What are the information in the DNS name:

- network (must): that will be:

geant.net or
nren.countrycode

- Useful might be:

location (city)

- Box Type:

pm
ab
nf

So it would provide

pm.rome1.garr.net
pm.frankfurt1.geant.net 


Hierarchical Naming Scheme

There should be a clear hierarchy defined.

Typically for a network interface you follow:

interface.router.city.network

So it should be:

boxID.city.network

This is telling a user much more about where it is located.

Then we can discuss about the box ID:

We will have

- measurement point (owd, ab, netflow, passive and network equipment)

 mp1 or mp-owd-ab, mp2 of mp-nf, mp3 or mp-mp, mp4 or mp-ne)

- measurement archives or servers

 ma1 or ma-wod-ab, ma2 or ma-nf, ma3 or ma-mp, ma4 or ma-ne)

- lookup service

 ls

- visualisation tools

 cnm or nemo or else.

So it would provide

 mp1.london.geant.net or mp-owd-ab.london.geant.net
 ma2.rome.garr.it or ma-nf.rome.garr.it


End-user point of view

Suggestion: not use functions in the domain name.

Example:

mp1.london.geant.net

Not: mp-owd-ab.london.geant.net

To find out what a specific box does would be the job of the LS.

If you want to have functions in the hostname, at least use one hostname for each function. e.g.

Example:

owd1.london.geant.net
ab1.london.geant.net 

instead of

mp-owd-ab.london.geant.net.

BUT

If the LS finds the capability of the box, there is no need to insert the functionality of the box int o the name.

So the suggestion for naming the boxes will be more simple:

we can use sonar as an identifier, and add local information like this:

sonar#.city.network.tld

for example:

sonar1.amsterdam.surf.net
sonar2.amsterdam.surf.net

to keep the track for the numbers, there are some possibilities:

unique number for all boxes
unique number per NREN/network
unique number per location

To keep the names unique, someone has to take care on the numbering. This will depend on the chosen schema.

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