SRE/Infrastructure naming conventions

This page documents the naming conventions of servers, routers, data center sites, and other infrastructure relevant to Wikimedia Foundation clusters.

Our servers currently fall in broadly two categories:

• Clustered servers: These use numeral sequences with a descriptive prefix (see #Networking and #Servers). For example: db1001.
• Miscellaneous servers: These use unique hostnames (see #Miscellaneous servers). For example: helium.

Name re-use

We never re-use names of past servers for new servers. For example, after db1001 is decommissioned, no other server will be named db1001.

The notable exception is networking gear, which are deterministically specified by rack. For example the access switch in Eqiad rack A8 is named asw-a8-eqiad. If it is replaced, the new switch will take the same name.

All previous servers are kept (even if decommissioned) in Racktables. Please check there for existing server names before deciding on a name for any new servers. (Note: Racktables is restricted by login.)

Datacenter sites

See also: Clusters

Clusters are named as vendor initials (at time of lease signing) followed by the IATA code for a nearby major airport.

For example: Our Dallas site is named CODFW. The vendor is CyrusOne, and DFW being the large nearby airport. (Technically, Love Field airport is closer but less well-known.)

Cluster	Vendor	Airport Code
codfw	CyrusOne	DFW
eqdfw	Equinix	DFW
eqiad	Equinix	IAD
eqord	Equinix	ORD
eqsin	Equinix	SIN
esams	EvoSwitch	AMS
knams	Kennisnet	AMS
ulsfo	United Layer	SFO

Networking

Naming for network equipment is based on role and location.

This also applies to: power distribution units, serial console servers, and other networking infrastructure.

Name prefix	Role	Example
asw	access switch	asw-a1-eqiad
cr	core router	cr1-eqiad
mr	management router	mr1-eqiad
msw	management switch	msw1-eqiad & msw-b2-eqiad
pfw	payments fire wall	pfw1-eqiad
ps1 / ps2	power strips/distribution units	ps1-b3-eqiad
psw	dedicated peering switch	psw1-eqiad
scs	serial console server	scs-a8-eqiad

OpenStack deployments

[Datacenter Site][numeric identifier](optional dev suffix to indicate non-external non-customer facing deployments) - [r (if region)][letter for AZ]

• Current Eqiad/Codfw deployments will not fully meet these standards until rebuilt: [eqiad0 (deployment), eqiad (region), nova (AZ)]

Deployment	Region	Availability Zone
eqiad0	eqiad0-r	eqiad0-rb
eqiad1	eqiad1-r	eqiad1-rb
codfw0dev	codfw0dev-r	codfw0dev-rb
codfw1dev	codfw1dev-r	codfw1dev-rb

Disks

• Naming follows two conventions:

• Array is attached to a single host:

• hostname_of_host_system-arrayN

• Example: ms2001-array1, ms2001-array2

• all arrays get a number, even if there is only a single array.

• Example: dataset1001-array1

• Array is attached to multiple hosts

• Labs uses this for labstore, each shelf connects to two different hosts. As such, the older single host naming scheme fails.
• servicehostgroup-arrayN-site

• Example: labstore-array1-codfw, labstore-array2-codfw

Servers

Any system that runs in a dedicated services cluster with other machines will be named after their role/service task. As a rule, we attempt to name after the service, not just the software package. Also, servers within a group are numbered based on the datacenter they are located in.

Datacenter	Numeral range	Example
pmtpa / sdtpa	1-999	cp7
eqiad	1000-1999	db1001
codfw	2000-2999	mw2187
esams / knams	3000-3999	cp3031
ulsfo	4000-4999	bast4001
eqsin	5000-5999	dns5001

When adding a new datacenter, make sure to update operations/puppet.git's /typos file which checks hostnames.

Name prefix	Description	Status
amssq	esams caching server	No longer used (deprecated)
amslvs	esams LVS	No longer used (deprecated)
analytics	analytics nodes (Hadoop, Hive, Impala, and various other things)	In use
auth	Authentication server	In use
bast	bastion host	In use
cloud*-dev	Any cloud role + '-dev' = internal deployment (PoC, Staging, etc)	In use (new)
cloudcontrol	OpenStack deployment controller	In use (new)
cloudservices	Misc OpenStack components (Designate)	In use (new)
cloudvirt	OpenStack Hypervisor (libvirtd + KVM)	In use (new)
cloudstore	Storage system for Cloud	In use (new)
cloudnet	Network gateway for tenants (Neutron l3)	In use (new)
conf	Configuration system host (etcd, zookeeper...)	In use
cp	cache proxy (Varnish)	In use
dataset	dataset dumps storage	In use (deprecated)
db	database host	In use
dbproxy	database proxy	In use
dbstore	database backup	In use
druid	Druid Cluster (Analytics)	In use
dumpsdata	dataset generation fileset serving to snapshot hosts	In use
elastic	elasticsearch servers	In use
es	external storage database	In use
etcd	Etcd server	In use
etherpad	Etherpad server	In use (mistake)
eventlog	Event logging host	In use
fr*	Fundraising servers, e.g. frdb, frlog, frpm (puppetmaster)	In use
ganeti	Ganeti Virtualization Cluster	In use
gerrit	Gerrit code review (cobalt in eqiad is currently used)	In use (deprecated)
graphite	Graphite server	In use
install	Installation server	In use (rare)
kafka	Kafka Brokers	In use
kafkamon	Kafka Monitoring (VMs)	In use
knsq	knams squid	No longer used (deprecated)
lab	labs virtual node	No longer used (deprecated)
labcontrol	lab controller	In use (deprecated)
labnodepool	labs node pool server (CI)	In use (deprecated)
labmon	labs monitoring server	In use (deprecated)
labnet	labs network	In use (deprecated)
labsdb	labs database	In use (deprecated)
labservices	labs services	In use (deprecated)
labstore	labs storage	In use
labtest	labs test hosts	In use (deprecated)
labvirt	labs virtualization node	In use (deprecated)
logstash	elasticsearch/logstash/kibana node	In use
lvs	lvs load balancer	In use
maps-test	maps test cluster	In use
mc	memcache server	In use
ms	media storage	In use (deprecated)
ms-be	media storage backend	In use
ms-fe	media storage frontend	In use
mw	MediaWiki node (MediaWiki PHP webservers, api, jobrunners, videoscalers)	In use
mwdebug	mediawiki deployment testing nodes (run in ganeti)	In use
mwlog	mediawiki logging server	In use
mx	Mail relays	In use
nas	NAS boxes (NetApp)	Unused
netmon	Network Monitor (smokeping, torrus, librenms)	In use
nfs	NFS server	Unused
notebook	Jupyterhub experimental server	In use
ocg	offline content generator (PDF)	In use
oresrdb	ORES Redis systems	In use
pc	Parser cache database	In use
pdf	PDF Collections	No longer used (deprecated)
phab	Phabricator host (currently iridium is eqiad phab host)	In use
planet	Planet server	In use (mistake)
pybal-test	PyBal testing and development	In use
rbf	Redis Bloom Filter server	Unused
rcs	Recent changes stream	In use
rdb	Redis server	In use
relforge	Discovery's Relevance Forge (see discovery/relevanceForge.git, T131184)	In use
restbase	RESTBase server	In use
sca	Service Cluster A - Includes various services	In use
scb	Service Cluster B - Includes various services. It's effectively the next generation of the sca cluster above	In use
snapshot	Data dump processing node	In use
sq	squid server	No longer used (deprecated)
srv	apache server	No longer used (deprecated)
stat	statistics computation hosts (see Analytics/Data access)	In use
storage	storage host	No longer used (deprecated)
tmh	MediaWiki videoscaler (TimedMediaHandler). See T105009 and T115950.	No longer used (deprecated)
virt	labs virtualization nodes	No longer used (deprecated)
wdqs	wikidata query service	In use
webperf	webperf metrics (performance team). See T179036.	In use
wtp	wiki-text processor node (parsoid)	In use

Miscellaneous servers

Any one-off or single service host. This includes pretty much all non-MediaWiki software on the cluster that isn't load balanced across multiple machines. Or general task machines that can cluster (to an extent) but require opsen work to do so. The naming of these is based on location (since they tend to do more than one kind of thing or provide more than one particular service/site type).

Datacenter Site	Convention	Example	Notes
codfw	Star Names	acamar	Only use modern proper star names that are a single word long and contain no odd characters. Orion constellation is reserved for fundraising (Alnilam, Alnitak, Bellatrix, Betelgeuse, Heka, Meissa, Mintaka, Nair Al Saif, Rigel, Saiph, Tabit, Thabit).
eqiad	Elements	helium	Next atomic # assignment (incremental by atomic #): 112
esams / knams	Notable Dutch	vandale