John McDonnell wrote:
Just a quick question, I'm planning on adding a machine_name field to the MAC address table in addition to the MAC addresses to make maintaining the list (adding and removing MAC addresses with new machines coming in and old ones going out) easier. Is there anything else that would be useful to add to the table?
Keep it simple. The simpler the table, the better. Things needed for your system are probably not needed for other systems. And the SQL schemas are editable for a reason: people can extend them locally.
Should I create an arbitrary key_id field or use the mac_address field as the index or perhaps the machine name since laptops and some other machines have multiple NICs?
That's a good idea, and is widely useful.
I might add an asset_id field as well since that would be easier for our users to read back to us (sticker on the outside of the equipment) for troubleshooting when checking to make sure their machine is entered properly in the database.
That would probably be a local site extension.
Does this seem to make the most sense or would there be a better table design that would be more efficient?
Nope. 'id', 'mac', and 'machine' are pretty much it.
Granted, the only thing in the table that will be regularly accessed will be the MAC address, the rest is just for making maintaining the addresses easier and will only be accessed when adding/removing/making sure MAC was entered correctly.
Yup. If you come up with a schema && some useful queries, we can add them to the default examples that come with the server. Alan DeKok.