Forget trying to remember your servers’ names!
This got really tedious. You can’t memorise many IP addresses, so you’re constantly referring to emails, post-its or even SMSes. Then you rebuild your server, the IP address changes, and you’re lost again.
And because some of the servers are administered by other people, I can’t always choose my own user name, so more faffing around.
nectar-tugg-dev: A development server for the TUGG project, running on NeCTAR Research Cloud infrastructure.
rmit-microtardis-prod: A development server for MicroTardis, running on RMIT infrastructure.
nectar-tunnelator: A side project “tunnelator” running on NeCTAR Research Cloud infrastructure. Small projects only have one server.
The key here is minimising what you need to remember. If I’m doing some work on a project, I’ll always know the project name and whether I want to work on the prod or dev server. Indeed, it’s an advantage to have to specifically type “-prod” when working on a production machine.
Put all IP addresses in /etc/hosts.
If a server moves location, just update the entry in /etc/hosts, and forget about it again.
So much less to remember. And because it’s so easy to connect, suddenly tools like SCP, and SSH tunnelling become much more attractive.
Good suggestions. You could also try using ‘ssh-agent’ to cache your SSH keys the first time you log into your computer. You can then skip the configuration in ~/.ssh/config. This is especially helpful if you have passphrases on your SSH keys (which you should!). You’ll only have to enter the passphrase once while loading the key into memory.