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Namespace: 6nw.de. / de.6nw

Everything that has a name is easier to manage, at least I think so. So everything of my IT that I need to manage is uniquely named. This document aims to be a complete documentation of all sub namespaces and their intended name scheme. Through, be aware, this document will be a mix of intend & real world uses.

6nw.de. is the domain I own. Only I am allowed to name stuff according to that namespace. Feel free to map & derivate the rules of this namespace for your own uses (licensed under CC-0), but please replace 6nw.de. with a domain your own and/or control.

Notation Scheme

The namespace scheme definition is alligned on the definition of the domain name space used for DNS:

  • Names according to this naming scheme are made of labels.
  • Each label is assigned to a node or leaf in the tree data structure created by the namespace.
  • Typically, through not always the case, a single entity is reflected by a leaf.
  • Each sub-namespace corresponds to a node & vice versa.

Root

However, different to DNS, the root node of this namespace is identified with the domain name 6nw.de.. Hence most names of this namespace should also be usuable as FQDNs in DNS.

Order of Labels

Names in this namespace can be written down in

  • "normal" DNS notation (i.e. with root as suffix: 6nw.de.)
  • reversed DNS notation (i.e. as prefix: de.6nw)

Which notation is used depends on the use case. Hence, assuming "normal" and reversed notation respectively, alpha.pc.6nw.de. and de.6nw.pc.alpha refer to the same object. In general, when the entity or system where the name is used on or in:

  • natively supports the DNS hierachy (e.g. DNS, FreeIPA, Windows AD)
    • the name must be used in any scheme native for to that system (e.g. PC de.6nw.pc.alpha will be)
  • is structured in a hierachy (e.g. LDAP, file systems, Java packages),
    • reverse DNS notation should be used (PC specific files stored in de/6nw/pc/alpha, or alternatively de.6nw.pc/alpha)
  • is often referred to in a namespace-specific setting
    • (e.g. storage media)
    • "normal" DNS notation should be used

For example: As operating systems often support the DNS hierachy for their own name by splitting that into a hostname & a FQDN, a PC called de.6nw.pc.alpha will be configured with the hostname alpha in the domain pc.6nw.de., resulting in its FQDN to become alpha.pc.6nw.de.

Caveats

  • By definition, labels are not limited to a certain character set. Through special characters should only be used wisely.

  • The separator used to join labels to a fully qualified name is not required to be a dot (.). If a fully qualified name is used in another hierachical system, a different separator can be used to make full use of that system’s hierachy. (e.g. / in URLs or file systems).

  • Because this document is structured hierachily, in most cases reversed DNS notation will be used further on. If "normal" DNS notation is used here, the names will end with a period .. In real world uses, the leading period might be omitted, hence detecting the hierachical order of the labels might be hard.

  • As the namespace definition crosses system boundaries, names may be written down in a scheme not defined by this document. In certain cases, this means that different separators are used in one name or that with the use of a different separator, a different order of labels is used. Examples are:

    • a ZFS dataset de.6nw.zfs.pool.dataset might be referred to as pool.zfs.6nw.de/dataset

Full Namespace

The full namespace is defined & used as follows. One asterisk * is used as a placeholder for a single label or, in some cases, for part of a label. Two astersiks ** is used as a placeholder for one or more of labels. Further informations on a sub-namespace might be found in following sections.

  • de.6nw (root)
    • disk.* (bare storage media)
      • luks (its LUKS partition)
      • pv (its LVM physical volume)
    • esp.* (ESP-like microcontrollers)
    • net.* (network devices)
    • inv (inventar system)
    • lvm.* (LVM volume group)
      • * (LVM logical volume)
    • o (other stuff)
    • pc.* (personal computer / phone / etc.)
      • vm.* (VM bound to that device)
    • pve.* (hypervisor cluster)
      • * (name, VM or container bound to that cluster)
      • ct* (number, VM bound to that cluster)
      • vm* (number, container bound to that cluster)
    • srv.* (baremetal server)
    • temp.* (temporary systems, e.g. installation ISOs & targets)
    • zfs.* (ZFS pool & root dataset)
      • ** (child datesets)