Search domain and naming conventions

While I was working to improve my homelab, I found it odd that single-name hostnames worked for Linux, but not for Windows (unless adding a punctuation at the end). As I’ve worked with DHCP before I’ve also seen the term “search domain” and wondered what it really does. In fact, it is used to tell clients to also add a suffix for a search domain. For example if your search domain is example.com and you look for test, the client will instead look for test.example.com.

This feature opens up for a load of possibilities regarding how hosts can be addressed within a homelab. The most significant is that it is now possible to traverse my homelab with names rather than IPs. But, a problem arises which is always difficult for anyone working in the IT field: naming conventions.

Before I decided to fix the search domain, I was linked to this. It gave me a clear guide on how to name my hosts for the future. Yes, I need to rename my current hosts to be sure that they follow this convention, but I dread the day I will eventually do this.