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Freequently
Asked Questions
Glossary
This
glossary is only a tiny subset of all of the various terms
and other things that people regularly use on The Net. For
a more complete (and very entertaining) reference, it's suggested
you get a copy of The New Hacker's Dictionary, which is based
on a VERY large text file called the Jargon File. Edited by
Eric Raymond (eric@snark.thyrsus.com), it is available from
the MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02142; its ISBN number
is 0-262-68069-6. Also see RFC-1208, A Glossary of Networking
Terms.
:-)
This
odd symbol is one of the ways a person can portray "mood''
in the very flat medium of computers---by using "smilies.''
This is 'metacommunication', and there are literally hundreds
of them, from the obvious to the obscure. This particular
example expresses "happiness.'' Don't see it? Tilt your
head to the left 90 degrees. Smilies are also used to denote
sarcasm.
Address
resolution
Conversion
of an Internet address to the corresponding physical address.
On an ethernet, resolution requires broadcasting on the local
area network.
Administrivia
Administrative
tasks, most often related to the maintenance of mailing lists,
digests, news gateways, etc.
Anonymous
FTP
Also
known as "anon FTP''; a service provided to make files
available to the general Internet community.
ANSI
The
American National Standards Institute disseminates basic standards
like ASCII, and acts as the United States' delegate to the
ISO. Standards can be ordered from ANSI by writing to the
ANSI Sales Department, 1430 Broadway, New York, NY 10018,
or by telephoning (212) 354-3300.
Archie
A
service which provides lookups for packages in a database
of the offerings of countless of anonymous FTP sites.
Archive
server
An
email-based file transfer facility offered by some systems.
ARPA
(Advanced Research Projects Agency)
Former
name of DARPA, the government agency that funded ARPAnet and
later the DARPA Internet.
ARPAnet
A
pioneering long haul network funded by ARPA. It served as
the basis for early networking research as well as a central
backbone during the development of the Internet. The ARPAnet
consisted of individual packet switching computers interconnected
by leased lines. The ARPAnet no longer exists as a singular
entity.
Asynchronous
Transmission
by individual bytes, not related to specific timing on the
transmitting end.
Auto-magic
Something
which happens pseudo-automatically, and is usually too complex
to go into any further than to say it happens "auto-magically.''
Backbone
A
high-speed connection within a network that connects shorter,
usually slower circuits. Also used in reference to a system
that acts as a "hub'' for activity (although those are
becoming much less prevalent now than they were ten years
ago).
Bandwidth
The
capacity of a medium to transmit a signal. More informally,
the mythical "size'' of The Net, and its ability to carry
the files and messages of those that use it. Some view certain
kinds of traffic (FTPing hundreds of graphics images, for
example) as a "waste of bandwidth'' and look down upon
them.
BITNET
(Because It's Time Network)
An
NJE-based international educational network.
Bounce
The
return of a piece of mail because of an error in its delivery.
btw
An
abbreviation for "by the way.''
CFV
(Call For Votes)
Initiates
the voting period for a Usenet newsgroup. At least one (occasionally
two or more) email address is customarily included as a repository
for the votes.
ClariNews
The
fee-based Usenet newsfeed available from ClariNet Communications
Client
The
user of a network service; also used to describe a computer
that relies upon another for some or all of its resources.
Cyberspace
A
term coined by William Gibson in his fantasy novel Neuromancer
to describe the "world'' of computers, and the society
that gathers around them.
Datagram
The
basic unit of information passed across the Internet. It contains
a source and destination address along with data. Large messages
are broken down into a sequence of IP datagrams.
Disassembling
Converting
a binary program into human-readable machine language code.
DNS
(Domain Name System)
The
method used to convert Internet names to their corresponding
Internet numbers.
Domain
A
part of the naming hierarchy. Syntactically, a domain name
consists of a sequence of names or other words separated by
dots.
Dotted
quad
A
set of four numbers connected with periods that make up an
Internet address; for example, 147.31.254.130.
E-mail
The
vernacular abbreviation for electronic mail.
E-mail
address
The
UUCP or domain-based address that a user is referred to with.
For example, the author's address is brendan@cs.widener.edu.
Ethernet
A
10-million bit per second networking scheme originally developed
by Xerox Corporation. Ethernet is widely used for LANs because
it can network a wide variety of computers, it is not proprietary,
and components are widely available from many commercial sources.
FDDI
(Fiber Distributed Data Interface)
An
emerging standard for network technology based on fiber optics
that has been established by ANSI. FDDI specifies a 100-million
bit per second data rate. The access control mechanism uses
token ring technology.
Flame
A
piece of mail or a Usenet posting which is violently argumentative.
FQDN
(Fully Qualified Domain Name)
The
FQDN is the full site name of a system, rather than just its
hostname. For example, the system lisa at Widener University
has a FQDN of lisa.cs.widener.edu.
FTP
(File Transfer Protocol)
The
Internet standard high-level protocol for transferring files
from one computer to another.
FYI
An
abbreviation for the phrase "for your information.''
There is also a series of RFCs put out by the Network Information
Center called FYIs; they address common questions of new users
and many other useful things.
Gateway
A
special-purpose dedicated computer that attaches to two or
more networks and routes packets from one network to the other.
In particular, an Internet gateway routes IP datagrams among
the networks it connects. Gateways route packets to other
gateways until they can be delivered to the final destination
directly across one physical network.
Header
The
portion of a packet, preceding the actual data, containing
source and destination addresses and error-checking fields.
Also part of a message or news article.
Hostname
The
name given to a machine.
IMHO (In My Humble Opinion)
This
usually accompanies a statement that may bring about personal
offense or strong disagreement.
Internet
A
concatenation of many individual TCP/IP campus, state, regional,
and national networks (such as NSFnet, ARPAnet, and Milnet)
into one single logical network all sharing a common addressing
scheme.
Internet
number
The
dotted-quad address used to specify a certain system. The
Internet number for the site cs.widener.edu is 147.31.254.130.
A resolver is used to translate between hostnames and Internet
addresses.
Interoperate
The
ability of multi-vendor computers to work together using a
common set of protocols. With interoperability, PCs, Macs,
Suns, Dec VAXen, CDC Cybers, etc, all work together allowing
one host computer to communicate with and take advantage of
the resources of another. |
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Internet History
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Network
Basics
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General
Problems
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General
Questions
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Glossary
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ISO
(International Organization for Standardization)
Coordinator
of the main networking standards that are put into use today.
Kernel
The
level of an operating system or networking system that contains
the system-level commands or all of the functions hidden from
the user. In a Unix system, the kernel is a program that contains
the device drivers, the memory management routines, the scheduler,
and system calls. This program is always running while the
system is operating.
LAN
(Local Area Network)
Any
physical network technology that operates at high speed over
short distances (up to a few thousand meters).
Mail
gateway
A
machine that connects to two or more electronic mail systems
(especially dissimilar mail systems on two different networks)
and transfers mail messages among them.
Mailing
list
A
possibly moderated discussion group, distributed via email
from a central computer maintaining the list of people involved
in the discussion.
Mail
path
A
series of machine names used to direct electronic mail from
one user to another.
Medium
The
material used to support the transmission of data. This can
be copper wire, coaxial cable, optical fiber, or electromagnetic
wave (as in microwave).
Multiplex
The
division of a single transmission medium into multiple logical
channels supporting many simultaneous sessions. For example,
one network may have simultaneous FTP, telnet, rlogin, and
SMTP connections, all going at the same time.
net.citizen
An
inhabitant of Cyberspace. One usually tries to be a good net.citizen,
lest one be flamed.
Netiquette
A
pun on "etiquette''; proper behavior on The Net.
Network
A
group of machines connected together so they can transmit
information to one another. There are two kinds of networks:
local networks and remote networks.
NFS
(Network File System)
A
method developed by Sun Microsystems to allow computers to
share files across a network in a way that makes them appear
as if they're ``local'' to the system.
NIC
The
Network Information Center.
Node
A
computer that is attached to a network; also called a host.
NSFnet
The
national backbone network, funded by the National Science
Foundation and operated by the Merit Corporation, used to
interconnect regional (mid-level) networks such as WestNet
to one another.
Packet
The
unit of data sent across a packet switching network. The term
is used loosely. While some Internet literature uses it to
refer specifically to data sent across a physical network,
other literature views the Internet as a packet switching
network and describes IP datagrams as packets.
Polling
Connecting
to another system to check for things like mail or news.
Postmaster
The
person responsible for taking care of mail problems, answering
queries about users, and other related work at a site.
Protocols
A
formal description of message formats and the rules two computers
must follow to exchange those messages. Protocols can describe
low-level details of machine-to-machine interfaces (e.g.,
the order in which bits and bytes are sent across a wire)
or high-level exchanges between allocation programs (e.g.,
the way in which two programs transfer a file across the Internet).
Recursion
The
facility of a programming language to be able to call functions
from within themselves.
Resolve
Translate
an Internet name into its equivalent IP address or other DNS
information.
RFD
(Request For Discussion)
Usually
a two- to three-week period in which the particulars of newsgroup
creation are battled out.
Route
The
path that network traffic takes from its source to its destination.
Router
A
dedicated computer (or other device) that sends packets from
one place to another, paying attention to the current state
of the network.
RTFM
This
anacronym is often used when someone asks a simple or common
question. The word 'Fantastic' is usually replaced with one
much more vulgar.
SMTP
(Simple Mail Transfer Protocol)
The
Internet standard protocol for transferring electronic mail
messages from one computer to another. SMTP specifies how
two mail systems interact and the format of control messages
they exchange to transfer mail.
Server
A
computer that shares its resources, such as printers and files,
with other computers on the network. An example of this is
a Network File System (NFS) server which shares its disk space
with other computers.
Signal-to-noise
ratio
When
used in reference to Usenet activity, signal-to-noise ratio
describes the relation between amount of actual information
in a discussion, compared to their quantity. More often than
not, there's substantial activity in a newsgroup, but a very
small number of those articles actually contain anything useful.
signature
The
small, usually four-line message at the bottom of a piece
of email or a Usenet article. In Unix, it's added by creating
a file .signature in the user's home directory. Large signatures
are a no-no.
Summarize
To
encapsulate a number of responses into one coherent, usable
message. Often done on controlled mailing lists or active
newsgroups, to help reduce bandwidth.
Synchronous
Data
communications in which transmissions are sent at a fixed
rate, with the sending and receiving devices synchronized.
TCP/IP
(Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol)
A
set of protocols, resulting from ARPA efforts, used by the
Internet to support services such as remote login (telnet),
file transfer (FTP) and mail (SMTP).
Telnet
The
Internet standard protocol for remote terminal connection
service. Telnet allows a user at one site to interact with
a remote timesharing system at another site as if the user's
terminal were connected directly to the remote computer.
Terminal
server
A
small, specialized, networked computer that connects many
terminals to a LAN through one network connection. Any user
on the network can then connect to various network hosts.
@TeX
A
free typesetting system by Donald Knuth.
Twisted
pair
Cable
made up of a pair of insulated copper wires wrapped around
each other to cancel the effects of electrical noise.
UUCP
(Unix to Unix Copy Program)
A
store-and-forward system, primarily for Unix systems but currently
supported on other platforms (e.g. VMS and personal computers).
WAN
(Wide-Area Network)
A
network spanning hundreds or thousands of miles.
Workstation
A
networked personal computing device with more power than a
standard IBM PC or Macintosh. Typically, a workstation has
an operating system such as unix that is capable of running
several tasks at the same time. It has several megabytes of
memory and a large, high-resolution display. Examples are
Sun workstations and Digital DECstations.
Worm
A
computer program which replicates itself. The Internet worm
was perhaps the most famous; it successfully (and accidentally)
duplicated itself on systems across the Internet.
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