Basic Internet Glossary Terms |
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| This
Glossary is intended only to define some basic terms new Netizens are likely to encounter.
There are other Dictionaries and Glossaries on the Web. Suggestions for additional links are welcome. |
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| ANONYMOUS
FTP BROWSER CLIENT CGI DAEMON DEFAULT GATEWAY DIAL-UP CONNECTION DNS DOMAIN FTP GATEWAY GET / |
GOPHER HTML HTTP HOST IMAP IP IP ADDRESS ISP InterNIC INTERNET NIC NNTP NAME SERVER |
NETNEWS NEWSFEED POP PPP ROUTER SEARCH ENGINE SLIP SMTP SERVER SPAM SUBNET T1 |
T3 TCP TCP/IP TELNET URL USENET UUCP WWW WINSOCK WEB WEB BROWSER WORLD WIDE WEB |
| ANONYMOUS FTP Most public FTP servers allow anyone to log into the system as user anonymous. By convention, the user's email address is used as the password. BROWSER A Browser (also referred as Web client) is a software application which lets you access and browse any Web Server on the Internet. The Browser will also display in a consistent format any Web document, which can contain text, graphics, sound, or video. The format the Browser uses to display the Web document is called hypermedia. CLIENT User-end software or computer designed to access and interact with a server. CGI Common Gateway Interface. A computer program or script residing on a web server, following the standards of HTTP, that serves as an interface between the server and the web browser. DAEMON Server software that is running in the background on a computer and is ready to accept incoming connections. |
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| DEFAULT GATEWAY The router assigned by the terminal server. DIAL-UP CONNECTION A dial up connection in your computer provides the means to connect with the ASANet Worldwide network, which in turn provides you the Internet access. A dial up connection will give you the opportunity to surf the Internet, receive and send e-mail, participate in Chat Rooms, host your Web page, or download documents or other pertinent information. DNS Domain Name Service. A DNS database cross-references a domain name, such as znet.com, and its associated hosts, with their IP addresses. A host's IP address, not necessarily the host and domain name, is needed to connect to a remote server. DOMAIN/ The name for a network of computers. For example,asanet.com is the domain name for any number of machines, or hosts, within asanet network. Any machine attached to that network, including all users' machines with a dialup connection, are hosts within the asanet.com domain. Furthermore, asanet.com is within the .com domain. FTP File Transfer Protocol. An established protocol to allow files to be transferred from one system to another. GATEWAY See router. GET / Terminal Server A machine dedicated to the task of accepting dialup connections. Modems are directly attached to a terminal server, some of which are capable of having several dozen connections. Some terminal servers have modems built into them. When a customer connects to ASANet, they are connected directly to a terminal server, which verifies the username and password. The terminal server is, in turn, connected to a router, often sitting right next to it, which routes the TCP/IP packets to and from the user via the terminal server. GOPHER A hierarchical, text-based information retrieval system, utilizing nested menus linked to additional menus and to documents. |
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| HTML Hyper Text Markup Language. A suite of tags and a specialized syntax used for formatting a document and creating links to other documents for use on a HTTP server. HTML files usually have the extension .htm or .html. This document, for instance, was created using HTML. HTTP Hyper Text Transfer Protocol. The basic protocol for the World Wide Web allowing for systems, documents and files to be linked together via URLs and other instructions given in an HTML document. HOST The specific name of a machine residing within a domain. For example, www is the name of a machine inside the asanet.com domain, its fully qualified host name being www.asanet.com. Please note that www does not necessarily specify a protocol. By convention, web servers are given the name www but any legal domain name will do. Furthermore, a server running web services may be running any number of other daemons, such as FTP and SMTP. IMAP Internet Message Access Protocol. Allows an email client to access and manipulate a remote email file without downloading it to the local system. IP Internet Protocol. See TCP/IP. |
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| IP Address A numerical address specified in four parts, separated by dots (periods) and each part having a number in the range of 0 to 255, the same range as for a byte. Each IP address, then, is four bytes long. Every machine on the Internet must have an IP address. An example is sj.znet.com's IP address of 207.167.80.19. A machine, however, does not have to have a host or domain name. ISP Internet Service Provider. A company providing complete Internet access to the public, most often through modem connections. Virtually every Internet protocol and service is available in an open environment. This differs from Commercial Online Services, such as America Online, Compuserve and Prodigy, in that those services provide access to a closed network of computers running its own proprietary software. However, those companies are now providing some Internet access, although content is sometimes restricted. InterNIC Internet Network Information Center. Among other things, the InterNIC is the central registry of all U.S. domain names, Domain Name Servers and IP addresses. A domain name lookup for a domain, such as asanet.com, will return the names and addresses of the Domain Name Servers handling name services for the hosts in that domain. INTERNET A vast network of networks, subnets and computers using the TCP/IP suite of protocols. Internet is not a generic name for all internets (interconnected networks), as others may be based on other protocols. The word Internet, when referring to the world-wide TCP/IP-based network, is a proper noun and should be capitalized. NIC Network Interface Card.. NNTP Network News Transport Protocol. Allows for a news client or another news server to interact with a news server, usually on port 119. |
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| NAME SERVER See DNS. NETNEWS See USENET. NEWSFEED The stream of USENET news articles flowing into a news server from another news server. Newsfeeds are made by agreement between the administrators of news servers. Servers, such as news.asanet.com, may have arrangements for multiple newsfeeds, as most servers do not carry all available USENET news groups. If one newsfeed goes down, some news groups will often continue to be received from a feed not affected by the particular outage. POP Post Office Protocol. A suite of commands, usually sent to port 110 (POP3) of a server allowing for the transfer of email from the server to the client (user's email software). These commands are issued by the email client, the whole process being transparent to the user. PPP Point to Point Protocol. The protocol used to allow two modems to transmit Internet traffic over phone lines. Considered to be more modern and efficient than SLIP. ROUTER A computer dedicated to the task of routing TCP/IP packets through the Internet. Simply told, routers act together as a relay system, each pointing to one or more routers upstream and downstream. SEARCH ENGINE A Search engine performs the task of finding and displaying specific information from the Internet, based on the criteria you established. The criteria can be very general, or you can be very specific about the subject. Since there is such a huge amount of information available on any imaginable subject, you can shorten the search task by employing advanced search techniques. These techniques can be: using exact words or phrases, symbols like + or - right in front or right after the word, Boolean operators which can include AND, OR, AND NOT. Generally, each of the Search engines has a Help link, explaining in greater detail how to perform a Search. |
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| SLIP Serial Line Internet Protocol. Allows Internet traffic to be conducted over serial lines. SMTP Simple Mail Transport Protocol. The protocol and suite of commands used to exchange email between two servers, usually running on port 25, or to transfer email from a client to a server. SERVER Used in reference to a machine and/or software (daemon) that provides services. Examples of such services are mail servers (usually running SMTP), news servers (running a NNTP daemon) and web servers (HTTP software). SPAM Spam is unsolicited email (or news postings), often of a commercial nature and typically sent as part of a bulk mailing. If you didn't ask for it, sign up on a mailing list related to it, or leave your email address on a web form asking for more information on it, it's spam. Subnet A subset of a network. Examples being 255.255.255.0, 204.149.43.0 and 207.149.81.0, with each host (computer) on the subnet being assigned a number in the last octet. For example, the address 207.149.80.19 is a machine in the 207.149.80.0 subnet. IP addresses are hierarchical from right to left (from the specific to the general). Domain and host names are hierarchical from left to right, with the leftmost element being the specific host, then working up from one subdomain to the next. T1 A digital telecommunications link capable of carrying 1.544 million bits per second. T3 A digital telecommunications link capable of carrying 44.736 million bits per second. TCP Transport Control Protocol. See TCP/IP. |
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| TCP/IP The underlying protocols and structure of the Internet. Transport Control Protocol/Internet Protocol. A method for carrying packets of digital data in a specific format. All Internet traffic must adhere to TCP/IP. TELNET The most common of several methods of logging into a remote server, usually to port 23. A telnet session will run a shell (text-based interface) on the server and provide the user with a system prompt, as though the user were working directly on the machine. It is possible to telnet to other ports of a server, each port running a service, and "converse" with the daemon in its language. Examples are port 80 for HTTP, port 25 for SMTP, port 21 for FTP and port 110 for POP3, each running software that will accept specific commands. For instance, telnet to port 80 of a machine known to run a web server and issue the command: telnet (server name)... URL Universal Resource Locator. A specialized syntax for addressing another server or a document, in the form of protocol://host/directory-or-user/directory/.../filename Examples: http://www.asanet.com/asanet/access/ ftp://ftp.asanet.com/ telnet://rs.internic.net/ https://www.secure_site.com/ USENET A term referring to the vast network of news servers running software compliant with NNTP. USENET is arranged in news groups, of which there are tens of thousands, each having any number of recent articles submitted by users in a "bulletin board" fashion. Only news reader software (and an Internet connection) is required to read and send USENET news. UUCP Unix to Unix Copy. A series of utilities allowing for the transfer of files via a serial line. WWW Acronym for World Wide Web. WINSOCK Windows Sockets. A standard for MS Windows software allowing it to interact with TCP/IP and the Internet. Virtually all Internet software running under Windows must be Winsock compliant. WEB A shortened expression for World Wide Web. WEB BROWSER See: Browser. WORLD WIDE WEB An expression for all Internet protocols accessible via a web browser, HTTP being the most common. Other services, such as FTP, gopher and telnet can be accessed with a web browser capable of exchanging commands of the particular protocol with the server and displaying the results to screen. The web, then, is an attempt to bring the most popular Internet protocols under one interface, as opposed to running individual FTP and gopher clients, for instance. Some web clients include complete email and news interfaces. |
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