cobbler system names can change

[William Reade]

We really want to be able to identify systems uniquely and persistently, and mutable names aren't good enough for that. Cobbler objects do have internal uids, which appear to be immutable, and we should use those to identify them instead.

[Scott Moser (smoser)]

"Cobbler objects do have internal uids, which appear to be immutable, and we should use those to identify them instead."

That does not sound right to me. Generalize it:
 - <thing> has internal uid
 - <external thing> should use <thing>'s internal uids

[William Reade (fwereade)]

Well, it's a bit more like:

- <thing> has internal uid, and no other persistent identifier
- <external thing> needs to reliably identfy <thing>s
- <external thing> should use <thing>'s internal uids

...and I probably shouldn't have used the word "internal". This is actually the intended use of a cobbler UID; see:

http://<email address hidden>/msg01577.html