Choosing Naming Conventions

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Creating naming conventions makes choosing names for computers, shared folders, and users easier and lends consistency to the network. This consistency results in a more user-friendly network. The following sections discuss choosing a domain name for the network as well as creating a naming convention for computer names.

More Info 

For help with naming users, see Chapter 9, “Users, Groups, and Security.” For help with naming shared folders, see Chapter 10, “Shares, Permissions, and Group Policy.”

Choosing a Domain Name for the Network

The domain name is the most important and politically sensitive name on the network. When deciding on a domain name, use the following guidelines:

• The name is easy to remember and makes sense for the company. This could be the company name in its most common form or an abbreviation.

• The name should be 15 characters or fewer, consisting only of letters, numbers, the underscore, and a hyphen. This strategy ensures DNS and NetBIOS compatibility.

• The name shouldn’t be already in use as an Internet domain name for another company.

• If the company already has an Internet Web site, consider using that domain name with the .local, .lan, or .office top-level domains. For example, if the company uses www.example.com for its Internet Web site, use example.local for the domain name.

  Tip 

  Avoid the .local top-level domain if you want to allow Mac OS X clients to use the network—it conflicts with the Mac OS X Rendezvous automatic network configuration standard.

• Once you choose a domain name, register it (preferably with .com, .net, or .org) on the Internet so that another company can’t purchase it.

Caution 

Changing a domain name is difficult and can cause numerous problems on a network, so picking a name that will last is important.

Naming Computers

It’s easy for you to keep a map of what the different clients and servers are and where they are on the network, but if you make life hard on users, you pay in the long run. So naming all the computers after Shakespearean characters or Norse gods might make sense to you, but it isn’t going to help users figure out that “Puck” is the Windows Small Business Server and “Hermes” is the desktop used for payroll. On the other hand, using “SRV1” for the Windows Small Business Server server tells everyone immediately which machine it is. When naming computers, use a consistent convention and sensible names such as the following:

• SRV1 or SBSSRV for the Windows Small Business Server 2003 computer

• FrontDesk for the receptionist’s computer

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