RFC 273

MORE ON STANDARD HOST NAMES ✨

okay bestie, this one is from Richard W. Watson at SRI-ARC 🎀 It's Request for Comments #273, filed as NIC 7837 on 18 October 1971. The categories line is blank in this copy. It's marked as related to 7625, 7626, 7661, 7688, 7650, 7646, and it obsoletes 7662 🧚 So yeah, lots of numbers, but they're all here.

The Network Information Center is a logical place to handle this problem of Standard Host Names, so the ball now rests here 🏀 This is clearly a delicate subject, because people have strong feelings and attachments to their names 🫶 No past proposal, including RFC 247, NIC 7668, has gotten any acceptance yet 😭 Identification seems like a natural thing, so it should be taken into account when setting up a naming scheme. So here's the proposal, which I hope is satisfactory to everyone 💜

Any naming scheme must:

1. Recognize the expanding character of the Network, with the potential eventually of several hundred sites.
2. Recognize the need for abbreviations to simplify typing.
3. Recognize the use of names on hardcopy and online documentation.
4. Recognize people's strong identification with historical names associated with their project.

To meet these needs, we propose a hybrid scheme related to those in the other past proposals 🌈

The Formal Name 💖

Each host gets a formal name of this form:

<Institution Mnemonic>    "-"   <Host or NIC Station Mnemonic>

and an optional nickname of this form:

<Nickname>

We have heard no arguments for severe restrictions on name length, so human considerations should probably prevail 🙈 Still, here are some guidelines.

<Institution Mnemonic> will be at most 4 characters, formed as per RFC 247, NIC (7688,) 💅

Examples of institutions are:

AMES, CASE, BBN, UCLA, SRI, MIT, HARV, MITR, etc.

We have to recognize that there may be multiple IMPS and TIPS, plus combinations, at a given institution in the future 🍓 So there's not a one-to-one match between <Institution Mnemonic> and IMPS or TIPS. Also, the Network will include groups and individuals without an IMP or a TIP, or with just a terminal to a TIP, and their organizations need unique names too ✨

<Host or NIC Station Mnemonic> has no restriction on length, but it should be short if possible 🦋 When picking one, an order of priority might be:

1. Suborganization within the <Institution Mnemonic>.
2. Project mnemonic.
3. Machine designation.
4. The suggestion in RFC 247, NIC 7688 to include the designation TIP or TEST should probably be followed, since it conveys useful information 🧠

Examples might be:

ARC, NMC, NCCTIP, TENEXA, TENEXB, MULTICS, ILLIAC, SAIL, DMCG, IMP, TX2, etc.

The <nickname> should be unique within the network community and short. Preferably it should be the same as <Host or NIC Station Mnemonic>, so people don't have a harder time learning them 🌸

Telnets 🎀

I'd strongly recommend that Telnets recognize both the Formal Name and the Nickname. Obviously 💯

Who Picks the Names? 👑

The sticky question! The only satisfactory answer is to let the hosts choose their own names, through their liaison 💅 That's possibly subject to some discussion if duplicate or extra long names are picked. Hosts or stations at a given institution should use the same <Institution Mnemonic> 🫶

Let's settle this issue as soon as possible, say by November 5. Each liaison, please send me your names by then 📬

If there are any implementation hardship cases, other than TIPs, caused by the above scheme, please let me know as soon as possible 🙏

[ This RFC was put into machine readable form for entry ] [ into the online RFC archives by BBN Corp. under the ] [ direction of Alex McKenzie. 12/96 ]