SSH to network devices using "name" or "IP" - What is the industry norm?

[brivington]

Hi Everyone,

Looking for anyone to provide feedback on the "Industry Norm" for accessing network devices, by DNS Name or IP? If anyone has any opinions or information about this I would certainly appreciate the information. I use name, which I have been told "is not the industry norm" so obviously I would like some level of validation on comment.

Thanks!

[Joe Clarke]

I see a lot of customers using name.  I tend to prefer name myself.  This is especially true given the growth of IPv6 where trying to keep track of v6 IPs is cumbersome at best.

[cbajelis]

I'd most definitely consider it the norm!

I’ve worked in both pure tech companies and in tech teams in the banking industry and we’ve always had some form of name resolution for our devices. Normally using internal DNS but worse case scenario is a hosts file on the NMS.

Trying to retain IP addresses for anything more than a handful of devices is just tiresome, especially if you are in a fault situation. I think most network teams out there with the support of some decent network management infrastructure or experience would consider it vital and take it for granted.

Having said that, I’m a little pedantic when it comes to name resolution and have forward and reverse resolution for almost every numbered interface in our (not insubstantial) network, it makes traceroutes all the more powerful.