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Run idnits with the --verbose option for more detailed information about the items above. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 Internet Draft Glossary February 2001 4 draft-ietf-uswg-glossary-00.txt Gary Malkin/Nortel Networks 5 February 2001 7 Internet Users' Glossary 9 Status of this Memo 11 This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with 12 all provisions of Section 10 of RFC2026. 14 Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering 15 Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that 16 other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet- 17 Drafts. 19 Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months 20 and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any 21 time. It is inappropriate to use Internet- Drafts as reference 22 material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." 24 The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at 25 http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt 27 The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at 28 http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html. 30 Abstract 32 There are many networking glossaries in existence. This glossary 33 concentrates on terms which are specific to the Internet. Naturally, 34 there are entries for some basic terms and acronyms because other 35 entries refer to them. 37 Acknowledgements 39 This document is the work of the User Services Working Group of the 40 User Services Area of the Internet Engineering Task Force. 42 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 1 43 Table of Contents 45 non-letter . . 3 I . . . . . . . 26 R . . . . . . . 46 46 A . . . . . . . 3 J . . . . . . . 33 S . . . . . . . 49 47 B . . . . . . . 8 K . . . . . . . 33 T . . . . . . . 52 48 C . . . . . . . 11 L . . . . . . . 33 U . . . . . . . 55 49 D . . . . . . . 15 M . . . . . . . 35 V . . . . . . . 57 50 E . . . . . . . 18 N . . . . . . . 39 W . . . . . . . 57 51 F . . . . . . . 20 O . . . . . . . 43 X . . . . . . . 59 52 G . . . . . . . 23 P . . . . . . . 43 Y . . . . . . . 60 53 H . . . . . . . 24 Q . . . . . . . 46 Z . . . . . . . 60 55 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 56 Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 57 Editors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 59 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 2 60 Glossary 62 10Base2 63 A physical layer communications specification for 10Mbps, baseband 64 data transmission over a coaxial cable (Thinnet) with a maximum cable 65 segment length of 200 meters. 67 10Base5 68 A physical layer communications specification for 10Mbps, baseband 69 data transmission over a coaxial cable (Thicknet) with a maximum 70 cable segment length of 500 meters. 72 10BaseF 73 A physical layer communications specification for 10Mbps, baseband 74 data transmission over a fiber-optic cable. 76 10BaseT 77 A physical layer communications specification for 10Mbps, baseband 78 data transmission over a twisted-pair copper wire. 80 802.x 81 The set of IEEE standards for the definition of LAN protocols. See 82 also: IEEE. 84 822 85 See: RFC 822 87 :-) 88 This odd symbol is one of the ways a person can portray "mood" in the 89 very flat medium of computers--by using "smiley faces". This is 90 "metacommunication", and there are literally hundreds of such 91 symbols, from the obvious to the obscure. This particular example 92 expresses "happiness". Don't see it? Tilt your head to the left 90 93 degrees. Smiles are also used to denote sarcasm. 94 [Source: ZEN] 96 abstract syntax 97 A description of a data structure that is independent of machine- 98 oriented structures and encodings. 99 [Source: RFC1208] 101 Abstract Syntax Notation One (ASN.1) 102 The language used by the OSI protocols for describing abstract 103 syntax. This language is also used to encode SNMP packets. ASN.1 is 104 defined in ISO documents 8824.2 and 8825.2. See also: Basic Encoding 105 Rules. 107 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 3 108 Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) 109 Many transit networks have policies which restrict the use to which 110 the network may be put. For example, some networks may only be used 111 for non-commercial purposes. Some AUPs limit the type of material 112 which can be made available to the public (e.g., pornographic 113 material). Enforcement of AUPs varies with the network. See also: 114 netiquette. 116 Access Control List (ACL) 117 Most network security systems operate by allowing selective use of 118 services. An Access Control List is the usual means by which access 119 to, and denial of, services is controlled. It is simply a list of 120 the services available, each with a list of the hosts permitted to 121 use the service. 123 ACK 124 See: Acknowledgment 126 acknowledgment (ACK) 127 A type of message sent to indicate that a block of data arrived at 128 its destination without error. See also: Negative Acknowledgement. 129 [Source: NNSC] 131 ACL 132 See: Access Control List 134 AD 135 See: Administrative Domain 137 address 138 There are four types of addresses in common use within the Internet. 139 They are email address; IP, internet or Internet address; hardware or 140 MAC address; and URL. See also: email address, IP address, internet 141 address, MAC address, Uniform Resource Locator. 143 address mask 144 A bit mask used to identify which bits in an IP address correspond to 145 the network and subnet portions of the address. This mask is often 146 referred to as the subnet mask because the network portion of the 147 address (i.e., the network mask) can be determined by the encoding 148 inherent in an IP address. See also: Classless Inter-domain Routing. 150 address resolution 151 Conversion of a network-layer address (e.g. IP address) into the 152 corresponding physical address (e.g., MAC address). See also: IP 153 address, MAC address. 155 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 4 156 Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) 157 Used to dynamically discover the low level physical network hardware 158 address that corresponds to the high level IP address for a given 159 host. ARP is limited to physical network systems that support 160 broadcast packets that can be heard by all hosts on the network. See 161 also: proxy ARP, Reverse Address Resolution Protocol. 163 Administrative Domain (AD) 164 A collection of hosts and routers, and the interconnecting 165 network(s), managed by a single administrative authority. 167 Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) 168 An agency of the U.S. Department of Defense responsible for the 169 development of new technology for use by the military. ARPA 170 (formerly known as DARPA, nee ARPA) was responsible for funding much 171 of the development of the Internet we know today, including the 172 Berkeley version of Unix and TCP/IP. 173 [Source: NNSC] 175 Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) 176 A pioneering longhaul network funded by ARPA. Now retired, it served 177 as the basis for early networking research as well as a central 178 backbone during the development of the Internet. The ARPANET 179 consisted of individual packet switching computers interconnected by 180 leased lines. See also: Advanced Research Projects Agency. 181 [Source: FYI4] 183 agent 184 In the client-server model, the part of the system that performs 185 information preparation and exchange on behalf of a client or server 186 application. 187 [Source: RFC1208] 189 alias 190 A name, usually short and easy to remember, that is translated into 191 another name, usually long and difficult to remember. 193 American National Standards Institute (ANSI) 194 This organization is responsible for approving U.S. standards in many 195 areas, including computers and communications. Standards approved by 196 this organization are often called ANSI standards (e.g., ANSI C is 197 the version of the C language approved by ANSI). ANSI is a member of 198 ISO. See also: International Organization for Standardization. 199 [Source: NNSC] 201 American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) 202 A standard character-to-number encoding widely used in the computer 203 industry. See also: EBCDIC. 205 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 5 206 anonymous FTP 207 Anonymous FTP allows a user to retrieve documents, files, programs, 208 and other archived data from anywhere in the Internet without having 209 to establish a userid and password. By using the special userid of 210 "anonymous" the network user will bypass local security checks and 211 will have access to publicly accessible files on the remote system. 212 See also: archive site, File Transfer Protocol, World Wide Web. 214 ANSI 215 See: American National Standards Institute 217 API 218 See: Application Program Interface 220 Appletalk 221 A networking protocol developed by Apple Computer for communication 222 between Apple Computer products and other computers. This protocol 223 is independent of the network layer on which it is run. Current 224 implementations exist for Localtalk, a 235Kb/s local area network; 225 and Ethertalk, a 10Mb/s local area network. 226 [Source: NNSC] 228 application 229 A program that performs a function directly for a user. FTP, mail 230 and Telnet clients are examples of network applications. 232 application layer 233 The top layer of the network protocol stack. The application layer 234 is concerned with the semantics of work (e.g. formatting electronic 235 mail messages). How to represent that data and how to reach the 236 foreign node are issues for lower layers of the network. 237 [Source: MALAMUD] 239 Application Program Interface (API) 240 A set of calling conventions which define how a service is invoked 241 through a software package. 242 [Source: RFC1208] 244 archie 245 A system to automatically gather, index and serve information on the 246 Internet. The initial implementation of archie provided an indexed 247 directory of filenames from all anonymous FTP archives on the 248 Internet. Later versions provide other collections of information. 249 See also: archive site, Gopher, Prospero, Wide Area Information 250 Servers. 252 archive site 253 A machine that provides access to a collection of files across the 255 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 6 256 Internet. For example, an anonymous FTP archive site provides access 257 to arcived material via the FTP protocol. WWW servers can also serve 258 as archive sites. See also: anonymous FTP, archie, Gopher, Prospero, 259 Wide Area Information Servers, World Wide Web. 261 ARP 262 See: Address Resolution Protocol 264 ARPA 265 See: Advanced Research Projects Agency 267 ARPANET 268 See: Advanced Research Projects Agency Network 270 AS 271 See: Autonomous System 273 ASCII 274 See: American Standard Code for Information Interchange 276 ASN.1 277 See: Abstract Syntax Notation One 279 assigned numbers 280 The RFC [STD2] which documents the currently assigned values from 281 several series of numbers used in network protocol implementations. 282 This RFC is updated periodically and, in any case, current 283 information can be obtained from the Internet Assigned Numbers 284 Authority (IANA). If you are developing a protocol or application 285 that will require the use of a link, socket, port, protocol, etc., 286 please contact the IANA to receive a number assignment. See also: 287 Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, STD. 288 [Source: STD2] 290 Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) 291 A standard which defines high-load, high-speed (1.544Mbps through 292 1.2Gbps), fixed-size packet (cell) switching with dynamic bandwidth 293 allocation. ATM is also known as "fast packet." 295 ATM 296 See: Asynchronous Transfer Mode 298 AUP 299 See: Acceptable Use Policy 301 authentication 302 The verification of the identity of a person or process. 303 [Source: MALAMUD] 305 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 7 306 Autonomous System (AS) 307 A collection of routers under a single administrative authority using 308 a common Interior Gateway Protocol for routing packets. 310 backbone 311 The top level in a hierarchical network. Stub and transit networks 312 which connect to the same backbone are guaranteed to be 313 interconnected. See also: stub network, transit network. 315 bandwidth 316 Technically, the difference, in Hertz (Hz), between the highest and 317 lowest frequencies of a transmission channel. However, as typically 318 used, the amount of data that can be sent through a given 319 communications circuit. 321 bang path 322 A series of machine names used to direct electronic mail from one 323 user to another, typically by specifying an explicit UUCP path 324 through which the mail is to be routed. See also: email address, 325 mail path, UNIX-to-UNIX CoPy. 327 baseband 328 A transmission medium through which digital signals are sent without 329 complicated frequency shifting. In general, only one communication 330 channel is available at any given time. Ethernet is an example of a 331 baseband network. See also: broadband, Ethernet. 332 [Source: NNSC] 334 Basic Encoding Rules (BER) 335 Standard rules for encoding data units described in ASN.1. Sometimes 336 incorrectly lumped under the term ASN.1, which properly refers only 337 to the abstract syntax description language, not the encoding 338 technique. See also: Abstract Syntax Notation One. 339 [Source: NNSC] 341 BBS 342 See: Bulletin Board System 344 BCNU 345 Be Seein' You 347 BCP 348 The newest subseries of RFCs which are written to describe Best 349 Current Practices in the Internet. Rather than specifying a 350 protocol, these documents specify the best ways to use the protocols 351 and the best ways to configure options to ensure interoperability 352 between various vendors' products. BCPs carry the endorsement of the 353 IESG. See also: Request For Comments, Internet Engineering Steering 355 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 8 356 Group. 358 BER 359 See: Basic Encoding Rules 361 Berkeley Internet Name Daemon (BIND) 362 Implementation of a DNS server developed and distributed by the 363 University of California at Berkeley. Many Internet hosts run BIND, 364 and it is the ancestor of many commercial BIND implementations. See 365 also: Domain Name System. 367 Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) 368 Implementation of the UNIX operating system and its utilities 369 developed and distributed by the University of California at 370 Berkeley. "BSD" is usually preceded by the version number of the 371 distribution, e.g., "4.3 BSD" is version 4.3 of the Berkeley UNIX 372 distribution. Many Internet hosts run BSD software, and it is the 373 ancestor of many commercial UNIX implementations. 374 [Source: NNSC] 376 BGP 377 See: Border Gateway Protocol 379 big-endian 380 A format for storage or transmission of binary data in which the most 381 significant bit (or byte) comes first. The term comes from 382 "Gulliver's Travels" by Jonathan Swift. The Lilliputians, being very 383 small, had correspondingly small political problems. The Big-Endian 384 and Little-Endian parties debated over whether soft-boiled eggs 385 should be opened at the big end or the little end. See also: little- 386 endian. 387 [Source: RFC1208] 389 binary 390 11001001 392 BIND 393 See: Berkeley Internet Name Daemon 395 Birds Of a Feather (BOF) 396 A Birds Of a Feather (flocking together) is an informal discussion 397 group. It is formed, often ad hoc, to consider a specific issue and, 398 therefore, has a narrow focus. See also: Working Group. 400 Bitnet 401 An academic computer network that provides interactive electronic 402 mail and file transfer services, using a store-and-forward protocol, 403 based on IBM Network Job Entry protocols. Bitnet-II encapsulates the 405 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 9 406 Bitnet protocol within IP packets and depends on the Internet to 407 route them. 409 BOF 410 See: Birds Of a Feather 412 BOOTP 413 The Bootstrap Protocol, described in RFC 1542, is used for booting 414 diskless nodes. See also: Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol, 415 Reverse Address Resolution Protocol. 417 Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) 418 The Border Gateway Protocol is an exterior gateway protocol defined 419 in RFC 1771. It's design is based on experience gained with EGP, as 420 defined in RFC 904, and EGP usage in the NSFNET Backbone, as 421 described in RFCs 1092 and 1093. See also: Exterior Gateway 422 Protocol. 424 bounce 425 The return of a piece of mail because of an error in its delivery. 426 [Source: ZEN] 428 bridge 429 A device which forwards traffic between network segments based on 430 datalink layer information. These segments would have a common 431 network layer address. See also: gateway, router. 433 broadband 434 A transmission medium capable of supporting a wide range of 435 frequencies. It can carry multiple signals by dividing the total 436 capacity of the medium into multiple, independent bandwidth channels, 437 where each channel operates only on a specific range of frequencies. 438 See also: baseband. 440 broadcast 441 A special type of multicast packet which all nodes on the network are 442 always willing to receive. See also: multicast, unicast. 444 broadcast storm 445 An incorrect packet broadcast onto a network that causes multiple 446 hosts to respond all at once, typically with equally incorrect 447 packets which causes the storm to grow exponentially in severity. 448 See also: Ethernet meltdown. 450 brouter 451 A device which bridges some packets (i.e. forwards based on datalink 452 layer information) and routes other packets (i.e. forwards based on 453 network layer information). The bridge/route decision is based on 455 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 10 456 configuration information. See also: bridge, router. 458 browser 459 A software application that allows users to access the World Wide 460 Web. The first production browser was released by Netscape. 462 BSD 463 See: Berkeley Software Distribution 465 BTW 466 By The Way 468 Bulletin Board System (BBS) 469 A computer, and associated software, which typically provides 470 electronic messaging services, archives of files, and any other 471 services or activities of interest to the bulletin board system's 472 operator. Although BBS's have traditionally been the domain of 473 hobbyists, an increasing number of BBS's are connected directly to 474 the Internet, and many BBS's are currently operated by government, 475 educational, and research institutions. See also: Electronic Mail, 476 Internet, Usenet. 477 [Source: NWNET] 479 cable modem 480 A device that allows digital data to be sent and received over a CATV 481 network. A typical cable modem presents a 10baseT interface to the 482 data network, and has a standard CATV connector. 484 Campus Wide Information System (CWIS) 485 A CWIS makes information and services publicly available on campus 486 via kiosks, and makes interactive computing available via kiosks, 487 interactive computing systems and campus networks. Services routinely 488 include directory information, calendars, bulletin boards, databases. 490 CCIRN 491 See: Coordinating Committee for Intercontinental Research Networks 493 CCITT 494 See: Comite Consultatif International de Telegraphique et 495 Telephonique 497 CERT 498 See: Computer Emergency Response Team 500 checksum 501 A computed value which is dependent upon the contents of a packet. 502 This value is sent along with the packet when it is transmitted. The 503 receiving system computes a new checksum based upon the received data 505 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 11 506 and compares this value with the one sent with the packet. If the 507 two values are the same, the receiver has a high degree of confidence 508 that the data was received correctly. See also: Cyclic Redundancy 509 Check. 510 [Source: NNSC] 512 CIDR 513 See: Classless Inter-domain Routing 515 circuit switching 516 A communications paradigm in which a dedicated communication path is 517 established between two hosts, and on which all packets travel. The 518 telephone system is an example of a circuit switched network. See 519 also: connection-oriented, connectionless, packet switching. 521 Classless Inter-domain Routing (CIDR) 522 A proposal, set forth in RFC 1519, to allocate IP addresses so as to 523 allow the addresses to be aggregated when advertised as routes. It 524 is based on the elimination of intrinsic IP network addresses; that 525 is, the determination of the network address based on the first few 526 bits of the IP address. See also: IP address, network address, 527 supernet. 529 client 530 A computer system or process that requests a service of another 531 computer system or process. A workstation requesting the contents of 532 a file from a file server is a client of the file server. See also: 533 client-server model, server. 534 [Source: NNSC] 536 client-server model 537 A common way to describe the paradigm of many network protocols. 538 Examples include the name-server/name-resolver relationship in DNS 539 and the file-server/file-client relationship in NFS. See also: 540 client, server, Domain Name System, Network File System. 542 CNI 543 See: Coalition for Networked Information 545 Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) 546 A consortium formed by American Research Libraries, CAUSE, and EDUCOM 547 (no, they are not acronyms) to promote the creation of, and access 548 to, information resources in networked environments in order to 549 enrich scholarship and enhance intellectual productivity. 551 Comite Consultatif International de Telegraphique et Telephonique ( 552 CCITT) 553 This organization is now part of the International Telecommunications 555 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 12 556 Union and is responsible for making technical recommendations about 557 telephone and data communications systems. Every four years CCITT 558 holds plenary sessions where they adopt new standards; the most 559 recent was in 1992. Recently, the ITU reorganized and CCITT was 560 renamed the ITU-TSS. See also: International Telecommunications 561 Union - Telecommunications Standards Sector. 563 Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) 564 The CERT was formed by ARPA in November 1988 in response to the needs 565 exhibited during the Internet worm incident. The CERT charter is to 566 work with the Internet community to facilitate its response to 567 computer security events involving Internet hosts, to take proactive 568 steps to raise the community's awareness of computer security issues, 569 and to conduct research targeted at improving the security of 570 existing systems. CERT products and services include 24-hour 571 technical assistance for responding to computer security incidents, 572 product vulnerability assistance, technical documents, and tutorials. 573 In addition, the team maintains a number of mailing lists (including 574 one for CERT Advisories), and provides an anonymous FTP server, at 575 "cert.org", where security-related documents and tools are archived. 576 The CERT may be reached by email at "cert@cert.org" and by telephone 577 at +1-412-268-7090 (24-hour hotline). See also: Advanced Research 578 Projects Agency, worm. 580 congestion 581 Congestion occurs when the offered load exceeds the capacity of a 582 data communication path. 584 connection-oriented 585 The data communication method in which communication proceeds through 586 three well-defined phases: connection establishment, data transfer, 587 connection release. TCP is a connection-oriented protocol. See 588 also: circuit switching, connectionless, packet switching, 589 Transmission Control Protocol. 591 connectionless 592 The data communication method in which communication occurs between 593 hosts with no previous setup. Packets between two hosts may take 594 different routes, as each is independent of the other. UDP is a 595 connectionless protocol. See also: circuit switching, connection- 596 oriented, packet switching, User Datagram Protocol. 598 Coordinating Committee for Intercontinental Research Networks (CCIRN) 599 A committee that includes the United States FNC and its counterparts 600 in North America and Europe. Co-chaired by the executive directors 601 of the FNC and the European Association of Research Networks (RARE), 602 the CCIRN provides a forum for cooperative planning among the 603 principal North American and European research networking bodies. 605 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 13 606 See also: Federal Networking Council, RARE. 607 [Source: MALAMUD] 609 core gateway 610 Historically, one of a set of gateways (routers) operated by the 611 Internet Network Operations Center at Bolt, Beranek and Newman (BBN). 612 The core gateway system formed a central part of Internet routing in 613 that all groups must advertise paths to their networks from a core 614 gateway. 615 [Source: MALAMUD] 617 Corporation for Research and Educational Networking (CREN) 618 This organization was formed in October 1989, when Bitnet and CSNET 619 (Computer + Science NETwork) were combined under one administrative 620 authority. CSNET is no longer operational, but CREN still runs 621 Bitnet. See also: Bitnet. 622 [Source: NNSC] 624 cracker 625 A cracker is an individual who attempts to access computer systems 626 without authorization. These individuals are often malicious, as 627 opposed to hackers, and have many means at their disposal for 628 breaking into a system. See also: hacker, Computer Emergency 629 Response Team, Trojan Horse, virus, worm. 631 CRC 632 See: cyclic redundancy check 634 CREN 635 See: Corporation for Research and Educational Networking 637 CU-SeeMe 638 Pronnounced "See you, See me," CU-SeeMe is a publicly available 639 videoconferencing program developed at Cornell University. It allows 640 anyone with audio/video capabilites and an Internet connection to 641 videoconference with anyone else with the same capabilities. It also 642 allows multiple people to tie into the same videoconference. 644 CWIS 645 See: Campus Wide Information system 647 Cyberspace 648 A term coined by William Gibson in his fantasy novel Neuromancer to 649 describe the "world" of computers, and the society that gathers 650 around them. 651 [Source: ZEN] 653 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 14 654 Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) 655 A number derived from a set of data that will be transmitted. By 656 recalculating the CRC at the remote end and comparing it to the value 657 originally transmitted, the receiving node can detect some types of 658 transmission errors. See also: checksum. 659 [Source: MALAMUD] 661 DANTE 662 A non-profit company founded in July 1993 to help the European 663 research community enhance their networking facilities. It focuses 664 on the establishment of a high-speed computer network infrastructure. 666 DARPA 667 Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency 668 See: Advanced Research Projects Agency 670 Data Encryption Key (DEK) 671 Used for the encryption of message text and for the computation of 672 message integrity checks (signatures). See also: encryption. 674 Data Encryption Standard (DES) 675 A popular, standard encryption scheme. See also: encryption, Pretty 676 Good Privacy, RSA. 678 datagram 679 A self-contained, independent entity of data carrying sufficient 680 information to be routed from the source to the destination computer 681 without reliance on earlier exchanges between this source and 682 destination computer and the transporting network. See also: frame, 683 packet. 684 [Source: J. Postel] 686 DCA 687 See: Defense Information Systems Agency 689 DCE 690 Data Circuit-terminating Equipment 692 DCE 693 See: Distributed Computing Environment 695 DDN 696 See: Defense Data Network 698 DDN NIC 699 See: Defense Data Network Network Information Center 701 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 15 702 DECnet 703 A proprietary network protocol designed by Digital Equipment 704 Corporation. The functionality of each Phase of the implementation, 705 such as Phase IV and Phase V, is different. 707 default route 708 A routing table entry which is used to direct packets addressed to 709 networks not explicitly listed in the routing table. 710 [Source: MALAMUD] 712 Defense Data Network (DDN) 713 A global communications network serving the US Department of Defense 714 composed of MILNET, other portions of the Internet, and classified 715 networks which are not part of the Internet. The DDN is used to 716 connect military installations and is managed by the Defense 717 Information Systems Agency. See also: Defense Information Systems 718 Agency. 720 Defense Data Network Network Information Center (DDN NIC) 721 Previously called "The NIC", the DDN NIC's primary responsibility was 722 the assignment of Internet network addresses and Autonomous System 723 numbers, the administration of the root domain, and providing 724 information and support services to the Internet for the DDN. Since 725 the creation of the InterNIC, the DDN NIC performs these functions 726 only for the DDN. See also: Autonomous System, network address, 727 Internet Registry, InterNIC, Network Information Center, Request For 728 Comments. 730 Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) 731 Formerly called the Defense Communications Agency (DCA), this is the 732 government agency responsible for managing the DDN portion of the 733 Internet, including the MILNET. Currently, DISA administers the DDN, 734 and supports the user assistance services of the DDN NIC. See also: 735 Defense Data Network. 737 DEK 738 See: Data Encryption Key 740 DES 741 See: Data Encryption Standard 743 dialup 744 A temporary, as opposed to dedicated, connection between machines 745 established over a phone line (analog or ISDN). See also: Integrated 746 Services Digital Network. 748 Directory Access Protocol 749 X.500 protocol used for communication between a Directory User Agent 751 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 16 752 and a Directory System Agent. 753 [Source: MALAMUD] 755 Directory System Agent (DSA) 756 The software that provides the X.500 Directory Service for a portion 757 of the directory information base. Generally, each DSA is 758 responsible for the directory information for a single organization 759 or organizational unit. 760 [Source: RFC1208] 762 Directory User Agent (DUA) 763 The software that accesses the X.500 Directory Service on behalf of 764 the directory user. The directory user may be a person or another 765 software element. 766 [Source: RFC1208] 768 DISA 769 See: Defense Information Systems Agency 771 Distributed Computing Environment (DCE) 772 An architecture of standard programming interfaces, conventions, and 773 server functionalities (e.g., naming, distributed file system, remote 774 procedure call) for distributing applications transparently across 775 networks of heterogeneous computers. Promoted and controlled by the 776 Open Software Foundation (OSF), a consortium led by Digital, IBM and 777 Hewlett Packard. 778 [Source: RFC1208] 780 distributed database 781 A collection of several different data repositories that looks like a 782 single database to the user. A prime example in the Internet is the 783 Domain Name System. 785 DIX Ethernet 786 See: Ethernet 788 DNS 789 See: Domain Name System 791 domain 792 "Domain" is a heavily overused term in the Internet. It can be used 793 in the Administrative Domain context, or the Domain Name context. 794 See also: Administrative Domain, Domain Name System. 796 Domain Name System (DNS) 797 The DNS is a general purpose distributed, replicated, data query 798 service. The principal use is the lookup of host IP addresses based 799 on host names. The style of host names now used in the Internet is 801 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 17 802 called "domain name", because they are the style of names used to 803 look up anything in the DNS. Some important domains are: .COM 804 (commercial), .EDU (educational), .NET (network operations), .GOV 805 (U.S. government), and .MIL (U.S. military). Most countries also 806 have a domain. The country domain names are based on ISO 3166. For 807 example, .US (United States), .UK (United Kingdom), .AU (Australia). 808 See also: Fully Qualified Domain Name, Mail Exchange Record. 810 dot address (dotted decimal notation) 811 Dot address refers to the common notation for IP addresses of the 812 form A.B.C.D; where each letter represents, in decimal, one byte of a 813 four byte IP address. See also: IP address. 814 [Source: FYI4] 816 DSA 817 See: Directory System Agent 819 DTE 820 Data Terminal Equipment 822 DUA 823 See: Directory User Agent 825 dynamic adaptive routing 826 Automatic rerouting of traffic based on a sensing and analysis of 827 current actual network conditions. NOTE: this does not include cases 828 of routing decisions taken on predefined information. 829 [Source: J. Postel] 831 E1 832 The basic building block for European multi-megabit data rates, with 833 a bandwidth of 2.048Mbps. See also: T1. 835 E3 836 A European standard for transmitting data at 57.344Mbps. See also: 837 T3. 839 EARN 840 European Academic and Research Network. See: Trans-European Research 841 and Education Networking Association. 843 EBCDIC 844 See: Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code 846 Ebone 847 A pan-European backbone service. 849 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 18 850 EFF 851 See: Electronic Frontier Foundation 853 EGP 854 See: Exterior Gateway Protocol 856 Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) 857 A foundation established to address social and legal issues arising 858 from the impact on society of the increasingly pervasive use of 859 computers as a means of communication and information distribution. 861 Electronic Mail (email) 862 A system whereby a computer user can exchange messages with other 863 computer users (or groups of users) via a communications network. 864 Electronic mail is one of the most popular uses of the Internet. 865 [Source: NNSC] 867 email 868 See: Electronic mail 870 email address 871 The domain-based or UUCP address that is used to send electronic mail 872 to a specified destination. For example an editor's address is 873 "gmalkin@xylogics.com". See also: bang path, mail path, UNIX-to-UNIX 874 CoPy. 875 [Source: ZEN] 877 encapsulation 878 The technique used by layered protocols in which a layer adds header 879 information to the protocol data unit (PDU) from the layer above. 880 For example, in Internet terminology, a packet would contain a header 881 from the physical layer, followed by a header from the datalink layer 882 (e.g. Ethernet), followed by a header from the network layer (IP), 883 followed by a header from the transport layer (e.g. TCP), followed by 884 the application protocol data. 885 [Source: RFC1208] 887 encryption 888 Encryption is the manipulation of a packet's data in order to prevent 889 any but the intended recipient from reading that data. There are 890 many types of data encryption, and they are the basis of network 891 security. See also: Data Encryption Standard. 893 error checking 894 The examination of received data for transmission errors. See also: 895 checksum, Cyclic Redundancy Check. 897 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 19 898 Ethernet 899 A 10-Mb/s standard for LANs, initially developed by Xerox, and later 900 refined by Digital, Intel and Xerox (DIX). All hosts are connected 901 to a coaxial cable where they contend for network access using a 902 Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Detection (CSMA/CD) 903 paradigm. See also: 802.x, Local Area Network, token ring. 905 Ethernet meltdown 906 An event that causes saturation, or near saturation, on an Ethernet. 907 It usually results from illegal or misrouted packets and typically 908 lasts only a short time. See also: broadcast storm. 909 [Source: COMER] 911 Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code (EBCDIC) 912 A standard character-to-number encoding used primarily by IBM 913 computer systems. See also: ASCII. 915 Exterior Gateway Protocol (EGP) 916 A protocol which distributes routing information to the routers which 917 connect autonomous systems. The term "gateway" is historical, as 918 "router" is currently the preferred term. There is also a routing 919 protocol called EGP defined in RFC 904. See also: Autonomous System, 920 Border Gateway Protocol, Interior Gateway Protocol. 922 eXternal Data Representation (XDR) 923 A standard for machine independent data structures developed by Sun 924 Microsystems and defined in RFCs 1014 and 1832. It is similar to 925 ASN.1. See also: Abstract Syntax Notation One. 926 [Source: RFC1208] 928 FARNET 929 A non-profit corporation, established in 1987, whose mission is to 930 advance the use of computer networks to improve research and 931 education. 933 FAQ 934 Frequently Asked Question 936 FDDI 937 See: Fiber Distributed Data Interface 939 Federal Information Exchange (FIX) 940 One of the connection points between the American governmental 941 internets and the Internet. 942 [Source: SURA] 944 Federal Networking Council (FNC) 945 The coordinating group of representatives from those federal agencies 947 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 20 948 involved in the development and use of federal networking, especially 949 those networks using TCP/IP and the Internet. Current members 950 include representatives from DOD, DOE, ARPA, NSF, NASA, and HHS. See 951 also: Advanced Research Projects Agency, National Science Foundation. 953 Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI) 954 A high-speed (100Mb/s) LAN standard. The underlying medium is fiber 955 optics, and the topology is a dual-attached, counter-rotating token 956 ring. See also: Local Area Network, token ring. 957 [Source: RFC1208] 959 file transfer 960 The copying of a file from one computer to another over a computer 961 network. See also: File Transfer Protocol, Kermit, Gopher, World 962 Wide Web. 964 File Transfer Protocol (FTP) 965 A protocol which allows a user on one host to access, and transfer 966 files to and from, another host over a network. Also, FTP is usually 967 the name of the program the user invokes to execute the protocol. 968 See also: anonymous FTP. 970 finger 971 A protocol, defined in RFC 1288, that allows information about a 972 system or user on a system to be retrived. Finger also refers to the 973 commonly used program which retrieves this information. Information 974 about all logged in users, as well is information about specific 975 users may be retrieved from local or remote systems. Some sites 976 consider finger to be a security risk and have either disabled it, or 977 replaced it with a simple message. 979 FIX 980 See: Federal Information Exchange 982 flame 983 A strong opinion and/or criticism of something, usually as a frank 984 inflammatory statement, in an electronic mail message. It is common 985 to precede a flame with an indication of pending fire (i.e. FLAME 986 ON!). Flame Wars occur when people start flaming other people for 987 flaming when they shouldn't have. See also: Electronic Mail, Usenet. 989 FLEA 990 See: Four Letter Extended Acronym 992 FNC 993 See: Federal Networking Council 995 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 21 996 Four Letter Extended Acronym (FLEA) 997 A recognition of the fact that there are far too many TLAs. See 998 also: Three Letter Acronym. 1000 FQDN 1001 See: Fully Qualified Domain Name 1003 fragment 1004 A piece of a packet. When a router is forwarding an IP packet to a 1005 network that has a maximum transmission unit smaller than the packet 1006 size, it is forced to break up that packet into multiple fragments. 1007 These fragments will be reassembled by the IP layer at the 1008 destination host. See also: Maximum Transmission Unit. 1010 fragmentation 1011 The IP process in which a packet is broken into smaller pieces to fit 1012 the requirements of a physical network over which the packet must 1013 pass. See also: reassembly. 1015 frame 1016 A frame is a datalink layer "packet" which contains the header and 1017 trailer information required by the physical medium. That is, 1018 network layer packets are encapsulated to become frames. See also: 1019 datagram, encapsulation, packet. 1021 freenet 1022 Community-based bulletin board system with email, information 1023 services, interactive communications, and conferencing. Freenets are 1024 funded and operated by individuals and volunteers -- in one sense, 1025 like public television. They are part of the National Public 1026 Telecomputing Network (NPTN), an organization based in Cleveland, 1027 Ohio, devoted to making computer telecommunication and networking 1028 services as freely available as public libraries. 1029 [Source: LAQUEY] 1031 FTP 1032 See: File Transfer Protocol 1034 Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) 1035 The FQDN is the full name of a system, rather than just its hostname. 1036 For example, "venera" is a hostname and "venera.isi.edu" is an FQDN. 1037 See also: hostname, Domain Name System. 1039 FYI 1040 For Your Information 1042 FYI 1043 A subseries of RFCs that are not technical standards or descriptions 1045 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 22 1046 of protocols. FYIs convey general information about topics related 1047 to TCP/IP or the Internet. See also: Request For Comments. 1049 gated 1050 Gatedaemon. A program which supports multiple routing protocols and 1051 protocol families. It may be used for routing, and makes an 1052 effective platform for routing protocol research. The software is 1053 freely available by anonymous FTP from "gated.cornell.edu". 1054 Pronounced "gate-dee". See also: Exterior Gateway Protocol, Open 1055 Shortest-Path First, Routing Information Protocol, routed. 1057 gateway 1058 The term "router" is now used in place of the original definition of 1059 "gateway". Currently, a gateway is a communications device/program 1060 which passes data between networks having similar functions but 1061 dissimilar implementations. This should not be confused with a 1062 protocol converter. By this definition, a router is a layer 3 1063 (network layer) gateway, and a mail gateway is a layer 7 (application 1064 layer) gateway. See also: mail gateway, router, protocol converter. 1066 Gopher 1067 A distributed information service, developed at the University of 1068 Minnesota, that makes hierarchical collections of information 1069 available across the Internet. Gopher uses a simple protocol, 1070 defined in RFC 1436, that allows a single Gopher client to access 1071 information from any accessible Gopher server, providing the user 1072 with a single "Gopher space" of information. Public domain versions 1073 of the client and server are available. See also: archie, archive 1074 site, Prospero, Wide Area Information Servers. 1076 GOSIP 1077 See: Government OSI Profile 1079 Government OSI Profile (GOSIP) 1080 A subset of OSI standards specific to U.S. Government procurements, 1081 designed to maximize interoperability in areas where plain OSI 1082 standards are ambiguous or allow excessive options. 1084 hacker 1085 A person who delights in having an intimate understanding of the 1086 internal workings of a system, computers and computer networks in 1087 particular. The term is often misused in a pejorative context, where 1088 "cracker" would be the correct term. See also: cracker. 1090 header 1091 The portion of a packet, preceding the actual data, containing source 1092 and destination information. It may also error checking and other 1093 fields. A header is also the part of an electronic mail message 1095 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 23 1096 which precedes the body of a message and contains, among other 1097 things, the message originator, date and time. See also: Electronic 1098 Mail, packet, error checking. 1100 heterogeneous network 1101 A network running multiple network layer protocols. See also: 1102 DECnet, IP, IPX, XNS, homogeneous network. 1104 hierarchical routing 1105 The complex problem of routing on large networks can be simplified by 1106 reducing the size of the networks. This is accomplished by breaking 1107 a network into a hierarchy of networks, where each level is 1108 responsible for its own routing. The Internet has, basically, three 1109 levels: the backbones, the mid-levels, and the stub networks. The 1110 backbones know how to route between the mid-levels, the mid-levels 1111 know how to route between the sites, and each site (being an 1112 autonomous system) knows how to route internally. See also: 1113 Autonomous System, Exterior Gateway Protocol, Interior Gateway 1114 Protocol, stub network, transit network. 1116 High Performance Computing and Communications (HPCC) 1117 High performance computing encompasses advanced computing, 1118 communications, and information technologies, including scientific 1119 workstations, supercomputer systems, high speed networks, special 1120 purpose and experimental systems, the new generation of large scale 1121 parallel systems, and application and systems software with all 1122 components well integrated and linked over a high speed network. 1123 [Source: HPCC] 1125 High Performance Parallel Interface (HIPPI) 1126 An emerging ANSI standard which extends the computer bus over fairly 1127 short distances at speeds of 800 and 1600 Mb/s. HIPPI is often used 1128 in a computer room to connect a supercomputer to routers, frame 1129 buffers, mass-storage peripherals, and other computers. See also: 1130 American National Standards Institute 1131 [Source: MALAMUD] 1133 HIPPI 1134 See: High Performance Parallel Interface 1136 HTML 1137 See: Hypertext Markup Language 1139 homogeneous network 1140 A network running a single network layer protocol. See also: DECnet, 1141 IP, IPX, XNS, heterogeneous network. 1143 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 24 1144 hop 1145 A term used in routing. A path to a destination on a network is a 1146 series of hops, through routers, away from the origin. 1148 host 1149 A computer that allows users to communicate with other host computers 1150 on a network. Individual users communicate by using application 1151 programs, such as electronic mail, Telnet and FTP. 1152 [Source: NNSC] 1154 host address 1155 See: internet address 1157 hostname 1158 The name given to a machine. See also: Fully Qualified Domain Name. 1159 [Source: ZEN] 1161 host number 1162 See: host address 1164 HPCC 1165 See: High Performance Computing and Communications 1167 HTTP 1168 See: Hypertext Transfer Protocol 1170 HTTPS 1171 See: Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure 1173 hub 1174 A device connected to several other devices. In ARCnet, a hub is 1175 used to connect several computers together. In a message handling 1176 service, a hub is used for the transfer of messages across the 1177 network. 1178 [Source: MALAMUD] 1180 hyperlink 1181 A pointer within a hypertext document which points (links) to another 1182 document, which may or may not also be a hypertext document. See 1183 also: hypertext. 1185 hypertext 1186 A document, written in HTML, which contains hyperlinks to other 1187 documents, which may or may not also be hypertext documents. 1188 Hypertext documents are usually retrieved using WWW. See also: 1189 hyperlink, Hypertext Markup Language, World Wide Web. 1191 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 25 1192 Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) 1193 The language used to create hypertext documents. It is a subset of 1194 SGML and includes the mechanisms to establish hyperlinks to other 1195 documents. See also: hypertext, hyperlink, Standardized General 1196 Markup Language. 1198 Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) 1199 The protocol used by WWW to transfer HTML files. A formal standard 1200 is still under development in the IETF. See also: hyperlink, 1201 hypertext, Hypertext Markup Language, World Wide Web. 1203 Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) 1204 A secure (encrypted) version of HTTP. 1206 I-D 1207 See: Internet-Draft 1209 IAB 1210 See: Internet Architecture Board 1212 IANA 1213 See: Internet Assigned Numbers Authority 1215 ICMP 1216 See: Internet Control Message Protocol 1218 IEEE 1219 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers 1221 IEEE 802 1222 See: 802.x 1224 IEN 1225 See: Internet Experiment Note 1227 IEPG 1228 See: Internet Engineering Planning Group 1230 IESG 1231 See: Internet Engineering Steering Group 1233 IETF 1234 See: Internet Engineering Task Force 1236 IGP 1237 See: Interior Gateway Protocol 1239 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 26 1240 IMHO 1241 In My Humble Opinion 1243 IMR 1244 See: Internet Monthly Report 1246 Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) 1247 An emerging technology which is beginning to be offered by the 1248 telephone carriers of the world. ISDN combines voice and digital 1249 network services in a single medium, making it possible to offer 1250 customers digital data services as well as voice connections through 1251 a single "wire." The standards that define ISDN are specified by 1252 CCITT. See also: CCITT. 1253 [Source: RFC1208] 1255 Interior Gateway Protocol (IGP) 1256 A protocol which distributes routing information to the routers 1257 within an autonomous system. The term "gateway" is historical, as 1258 "router" is currently the preferred term. See also: Autonomous 1259 System, Exterior Gateway Protocol, Open Shortest-Path First, Routing 1260 Information Protocol. 1262 Intermediate System (IS) 1263 An OSI system which performs network layer forwarding. It is 1264 analogous to an IP router. See also: Open Systems Interconnection, 1265 router. 1267 Intermediate System-Intermediate System (IS-IS) 1268 The OSI IGP. See also: Open Systems Interconnection, Interior 1269 Gateway Protocol. 1271 International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 1272 A voluntary, nontreaty organization founded in 1946 which is 1273 responsible for creating international standards in many areas, 1274 including computers and communications. Its members are the national 1275 standards organizations of the 89 member countries, including ANSI 1276 for the U.S. See also: American National Standards Institute, Open 1277 Systems Interconnection. 1278 [Source: TAN] 1280 International Telecommunications Union (ITU) 1281 An agency of the United Nations which coordinates the various 1282 national telecommunications standards so that people in one country 1283 can communicate with people in another country. 1285 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 27 1286 International Telecommunications Union - 1287 Telecommunications Standards Sector (ITU-TSS) 1288 The new name for CCITT since the ITU reorganization. The function is 1289 the same; only the name has been changed 1291 internet 1292 While an internet is a network, the term "internet" is usually used 1293 to refer to a collection of networks interconnected with routers. 1294 See also: network. 1296 Internet 1297 (note the capital "I") The Internet is the largest internet in the 1298 world. Is a three level hierarchy composed of backbone networks 1299 (e.g. Ultranet), mid-level networks (e.g., NEARnet) and stub 1300 networks. The Internet is a multiprotocol internet. See also: 1301 backbone, mid-level network, stub network, transit network, Internet 1302 Protocol. 1304 internet address 1305 A IP address that uniquely identifies a node on an internet. An 1306 Internet address (capital "I"), uniquely identifies a node on the 1307 Internet. See also: internet, Internet, IP address. 1309 Internet Architecture Board (IAB) 1311 The IAB has been many things over the years. Originally the Internet 1312 Activities Board, it was responsible for the development of the 1313 protocols which make up the Internet. It later changed its name and 1314 charter to become the group most responsible for the architecture of 1315 the Internet, leaving the protocol details to the IESG. In June of 1316 1992, it was chartered as a component of the Internet Society; this 1317 is the charter it holds today. The IAB is responsible for approving 1318 nominations to the IESG, architectural oversight for Internet 1319 Standard Protocols, IETF standards process oversight and appeals, 1320 IANA and RFC activities, and liaison to peer standards groups (e.g., 1321 ISO). See also: Internet Engineering Task Force, Internet Research 1322 Task Force, Internet Engineering Steering Group, Internet Assigned 1323 Numbers Authority, Request for Comments. 1325 Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) 1326 The central registry for various Internet protocol parameters, such 1327 as port, protocol and enterprise numbers, and options, codes and 1328 types. The currently assigned values are listed in the "Assigned 1329 Numbers" document [STD2]. To request a number assignment, contact 1330 the IANA at "iana@isi.edu". See also: assigned numbers, STD. 1332 Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) 1333 ICMP is an extension to the Internet Protocol. It allows for the 1335 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 28 1336 generation of error messages, test packets and informational messages 1337 related to IP. 1338 [Source: FYI4] 1340 Internet-Draft (I-D) 1341 Internet-Drafts are working documents of the IETF, its Areas, and its 1342 Working Groups. As the name implies, Internet-Drafts are draft 1343 documents. They are valid for a maximum of six months and may be 1344 updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. Very 1345 often, I-Ds are precursors to RFCs. See also: Internet Engineering 1346 Task Force, Request For Comments. 1348 Internet Engineering Planning Group (IEPG) 1349 A group, primarily composed of Internet service operators, whose goal 1350 is to promote a globally coordinated Internet operating environment. 1351 Membership is open to all. 1353 Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG) 1354 The IESG is composed of the IETF Area Directors and the IETF Chair. 1355 It provides the first technical review of Internet standards and is 1356 responsible for day-to-day "management" of the IETF. See also: 1357 Internet Engineering Task Force. 1359 Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) 1360 The IETF is a large, open community of network designers, operators, 1361 vendors, and researchers whose purpose is to coordinate the 1362 operation, management and evolution of the Internet, and to resolve 1363 short-range and mid-range protocol and architectural issues. It is a 1364 major source of proposals for protocol standards which are submitted 1365 to the IAB for final approval. The IETF meets three times a year and 1366 extensive minutes are included in the IETF Proceedings. See also: 1367 Internet, Internet Architecture Board. 1368 [Source: FYI4] 1370 Internet Experiment Note (IEN) 1371 A series of reports pertinent to the Internet. IENs were published 1372 in parallel to RFCs and were intended to be "working documents." 1373 They have been replaced by Internet-Drafts and are currently of 1374 historic value only. See also: Internet-Draft, Request For Comments. 1376 Internet Monthly Report (IMR) 1377 Published monthly, the purpose of the Internet Monthly Reports is to 1378 communicate to the Internet Research Group the accomplishments, 1379 milestones reached, or problems discovered by the participating 1380 organizations. 1382 internet number 1383 See: internet address 1385 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 29 1386 Internet Protocol (IP, IPv4) 1387 The Internet Protocol (version 4), defined in RFC 791, is the network 1388 layer for the TCP/IP Protocol Suite. It is a connectionless, best- 1389 effort packet switching protocol. See also: packet switching, TCP/IP 1390 Protocol Suite, Internet Protocol Version 6. 1392 Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPng, IPv6) 1393 IPv6 (version 5 is a stream protocol used for special applications) 1394 is a new version of the Internet Protocol which is designed to be an 1395 evolutionary step from its predecessor, version 4. There are many 1396 RFCs defining various portions of the protocol, its auxiliary 1397 protocols, and the transition plan from IPv4. The core RFCs are 1883 1398 through 1886. The name IPng (IP next generation) is a nod to STNG 1399 (Star Trek Next Generation). 1401 Internet Registry (IR) 1402 The IANA has the discretionary authority to delegate portions of its 1403 responsibility and, with respect to network address and Autonomous 1404 System identifiers, has lodged this responsibility with an IR. The 1405 IR function is performed by the DDN NIC. See also: Autonomous 1406 System, network address, Defense Data Network..., Internet Assigned 1407 Numbers Authority. 1409 Internet Relay Chat (IRC) 1410 A world-wide "party line" protocol that allows one to converse with 1411 others in real time. IRC is structured as a network of servers, each 1412 of which accepts connections from client programs, one per user. See 1413 also: talk. 1414 [Source: HACKER] 1416 Internet Research Steering Group (IRSG) 1417 The "governing body" of the IRTF. See also: Internet Research Task 1418 Force. 1419 [Source: MALAMUD] 1421 Internet Research Task Force (IRTF) 1422 The IRTF is chartered by the IAB to consider long-term Internet 1423 issues from a theoretical point of view. It has Research Groups, 1424 similar to IETF Working Groups, which are each tasked to discuss 1425 different research topics. Multi-cast audio/video conferencing and 1426 privacy enhanced mail are samples of IRTF output. See also: Internet 1427 Architecture Board, Internet Engineering Task Force, Privacy Enhanced 1428 Mail. 1430 Internet Society (ISOC) 1431 The Internet Society is a non-profit, professional membership 1432 organization which facilitates and supports the technical evolution 1433 of the Internet, stimulates interest in and educates the scientific 1435 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 30 1436 and academic communities, industry and the public about the 1437 technology, uses and applications of the Internet, and promotes the 1438 development of new applications for the system. The Society provides 1439 a forum for discussion and collaboration in the operation and use of 1440 the global Internet infrastructure. The Internet Society publishes a 1441 quarterly newsletter, the Internet Society News, and holds an annual 1442 conference, INET. The development of Internet technical standards 1443 takes place under the auspices of the Internet Society with 1444 substantial support from the Corporation for National Research 1445 Initiatives under a cooperative agreement with the US Federal 1446 Government. 1447 [Source: V. Cerf] 1449 Internetwork Packet eXchange (IPX) 1450 Novell's protocol used by Netware. A router with IPX routing can 1451 interconnect LANs so that Novell Netware clients and servers can 1452 communicate. See also: Local Area Network. 1454 InterNIC 1455 A five year project, partially supported by the National Science 1456 Foundation, to provide network information services to the networking 1457 community. The InterNIC began operations in April of 1993 and is now 1458 a collaborative project of two organizations: AT&T, which provides 1459 Directory and Database Services from South Plainsfield, NJ; and 1460 Network Solutions, Inc., which provides Registration Services from 1461 their headquarters in Herndon, VA. Services are provided via the 1462 Internet, and by telephone, FAX, and hardcopy. 1464 interoperability 1465 The ability of software and hardware on multiple machines from 1466 multiple vendors to communicate meaningfully. 1468 IP (IPv4) 1469 See: Internet Protocol 1471 IPng (IPv6) 1472 See: Internet Protocol Version 6 1474 IP address 1475 The 32-bit address defined by the Internet Protocol in RFC 791. It 1476 is usually represented in dotted decimal notation. See also: dot 1477 address, internet address, Internet Protocol, network address, subnet 1478 address, host address. 1480 IP datagram 1481 See: datagram 1483 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 31 1484 IPX 1485 See: Internetwork Packet eXchange 1487 IR 1488 See: Internet Registry 1490 IRC 1491 See: Internet Relay Chat 1493 IRSG 1494 See: Internet Research Steering Group 1496 IRTF 1497 See: Internet Research Task Force 1499 IS 1500 See: Intermediate System 1502 IS-IS 1503 See: Intermediate System-Intermediate System 1505 ISDN 1506 See: Integrated Services Digital Network 1508 ISO 1509 See: International Organization for Standardization 1511 ISO Development Environment (ISODE) 1512 Software that allows OSI services to use a TCP/IP network. 1513 Pronounced eye-so-dee-eee. See also: Open Systems Interconnection, 1514 TCP/IP Protocol Suite. 1516 ISOC 1517 See: Internet Society 1519 ISODE 1520 See: ISO Development Environment 1522 ITU 1523 See: International Telecommunications Union - 1524 Telecommunications Standards Sector 1526 ITU-TSS 1527 See: International Telecommunications Union 1529 JKREY 1530 Joyce K. Reynolds 1532 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 32 1533 KA9Q 1534 A popular implementation of TCP/IP and associated protocols for 1535 amateur packet radio systems. See also: TCP/IP Protocol Suite. 1536 [Source: RFC1208] 1538 Kerberos 1539 Kerberos is the security system of MIT's Project Athena. It is based 1540 on symmetric key cryptography. See also: encryption. 1542 Kermit 1543 A popular file transfer protocol developed by Columbia University. 1544 Because Kermit runs in most operating environments, it provides an 1545 easy method of file transfer. Kermit is NOT the same as FTP. See 1546 also: File Transfer Protocol 1547 [Source: MALAMUD] 1549 Knowbot 1550 A "Knowledge Robot" is a program which seeks out information based on 1551 specified criteria. "Knowbot," as trademarked by CNRI, refers 1552 specifically to the search engine for Knowbot Information Services. 1553 See also: Corporation for National Research Initiatives, X.500, white 1554 pages, whois, netfind. 1556 Knowbot Information Services 1557 An experimental directory service. See also: white pages, whois, 1558 X.500. 1560 LAN 1561 See: Local Area Network 1563 layer 1564 Communication networks for computers may be organized as a set of 1565 more or less independent protocols, each in a different layer (also 1566 called level). The lowest layer governs direct host-to-host 1567 communication between the hardware at different hosts; the highest 1568 consists of user applications. Each layer builds on the layer 1569 beneath it. For each layer, programs at different hosts use 1570 protocols appropriate to the layer to communicate with each other. 1571 TCP/IP has five layers of protocols; OSI has seven. The advantages 1572 of different layers of protocols is that the methods of passing 1573 information from one layer to another are specified clearly as part 1574 of the protocol suite, and changes within a protocol layer are 1575 prevented from affecting the other layers. This greatly simplifies 1576 the task of designing and maintaining communication programs. See 1577 also: Open Systems Interconnection, TCP/IP Protocol Suite. 1579 LDAP 1580 See: Lightweight Directory Access Protocol 1582 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 33 1583 Lightweight Directory Access Protocol 1584 This protocol provides access for management and browser applications 1585 that provide read/write interactive access to the X.500 Directory. 1586 See also: X.500. 1588 link 1589 A pointer which may be used to retreive the file or data to which the 1590 pointer points. 1592 list server 1593 An automated mailing list distribution system. List servers handle 1594 the administrivia of mailing list maintenance, such as the adding and 1595 deleting of list members. 1597 little-endian 1598 A format for storage or transmission of binary data in which the 1599 least significant byte (bit) comes first. See also: big-endian. 1600 [Source: RFC1208] 1602 LLC 1603 See: Logical Link Control 1605 Local Area Network (LAN) 1606 A data network intended to serve an area of only a few square 1607 kilometers or less. Because the network is known to cover only a 1608 small area, optimizations can be made in the network signal protocols 1609 that permit data rates up to 100Mb/s. See also: Ethernet, Fiber 1610 Distributed Data Interface, token ring, Metropolitan Area Network, 1611 Wide Area Network. 1612 [Source: NNSC] 1614 Logical Link Control (LLC) 1615 The upper portion of the datalink layer, as defined in IEEE 802.2. 1616 The LLC sublayer presents a uniform interface to the user of the 1617 datalink service, usually the network layer. Beneath the LLC 1618 sublayer is the MAC sublayer. See also: 802.x, layer, Media Access 1619 Control. 1621 Lurking 1622 No active participation on the part of a subscriber to an mailing 1623 list or USENET newsgroup. A person who is lurking is just listening 1624 to the discussion. Lurking is encouraged for beginners who need to 1625 get up to speed on the history of the group. See also: Electronic 1626 Mail, mailing list, Usenet. 1627 [Source: LAQUEY] 1629 Lycos 1630 Lycos, Inc. is a new venture formed in late June 1995, to develop and 1632 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 34 1633 market the Lycos technology originally developed under the direction 1634 of Dr. Michael ("Fuzzy") Mauldin at Carnegie Mellon University. The 1635 part of Lycos you see when you do a search is the search engine. 1636 "Lycos" comes from Lycosidae, a cosmopolitan family of relatively 1637 large active ground spiders (Wolf Spiders) that catch their prey by 1638 pursuit, rather than in a web. 1639 [Source: Lycos's FAQ] 1641 MAC 1642 See: Media Access Control 1644 MAC address 1645 The hardware address of a device connected to a shared media. See 1646 also: Media Access Control, Ethernet, token ring. 1647 [Source: MALAMUD] 1649 mail bridge 1650 A mail gateway that forwards electronic mail between two or more 1651 networks while ensuring that the messages it forwards meet certain 1652 administrative criteria. A mail bridge is simply a specialized form 1653 of mail gateway that enforces an administrative policy with regard to 1654 what mail it forwards. See also: Electronic Mail, mail gateway. 1655 [Source: NNSC] 1657 Mail Exchange Record (MX Record) 1658 A DNS resource record type indicating which host can handle mail for 1659 a particular domain. See also: Domain Name System, Electronic Mail. 1660 [Source: MALAMUD] 1662 mail exploder 1663 Part of an electronic mail delivery system which allows a message to 1664 be delivered to a list of addresses. Mail exploders are used to 1665 implement mailing lists. Users send messages to a single address and 1666 the mail exploder takes care of delivery to the individual mailboxes 1667 in the list. See also: Electronic Mail, email address, mailing list. 1668 [Source: RFC1208] 1670 mail gateway 1671 A machine that connects two or more electronic mail systems 1672 (including dissimilar mail systems) and transfers messages between 1673 them. Sometimes the mapping and translation can be quite complex, 1674 and it generally requires a store-and-forward scheme whereby the 1675 message is received from one system completely before it is 1676 transmitted to the next system, after suitable translations. See 1677 also: Electronic Mail. 1678 [Source: RFC1208] 1680 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 35 1681 mail path 1682 A series of machine names used to direct electronic mail from one 1683 user to another. This system of email addressing has been used 1684 primarily in UUCP networks which are trying to eliminate its use 1685 altogether. See also: bang path, email address, UNIX-to-UNIX CoPy. 1687 mail server 1688 A software program that distributes files or information in response 1689 to requests sent via email. Internet examples include Almanac and 1690 netlib. Mail servers have also been used in Bitnet to provide FTP- 1691 like services. See also: Bitnet, Electronic Mail, FTP. 1692 [Source: NWNET] 1694 mailing list 1695 A list of email addresses, used by a mail exploder, to forward 1696 messages to groups of people. Generally, a mailing list is used to 1697 discuss certain set of topics, and different mailing lists discuss 1698 different topics. A mailing list may be moderated. This means that 1699 messages sent to the list are actually sent to a moderator who 1700 determines whether or not to send the messages on to everyone else. 1701 Requests to subscribe to, or leave, a mailing list should ALWAYS be 1702 sent to the list's "-request" address (e.g. ietf- 1703 request@cnri.reston.va.us for the IETF mailing list) or majordomo 1704 server. See also: Electronic Mail, mail exploder, email address, 1705 moderator, majordomo. 1707 majordomo 1708 A program which handles mailing list maintenance (affectionately 1709 known as administrivia) such as adding and removing addresses from 1710 mailing lists. See also: email address, mailing list. 1712 MAN 1713 See: Metropolitan Area Network 1715 Management Information Base (MIB) 1716 The set of parameters an SNMP management station can query or set in 1717 the SNMP agent of a network device (e.g. router). Standard, minimal 1718 MIBs have been defined, and vendors often have Private enterprise 1719 MIBs. In theory, any SNMP manager can talk to any SNMP agent with a 1720 properly defined MIB. See also: client-server model, Simple Network 1721 Management Protocol. 1722 [Source: BIG-LAN] 1724 Martian 1725 A humorous term applied to packets that turn up unexpectedly on the 1726 wrong network because of bogus routing entries. Also used as a name 1727 for a packet which has an altogether bogus (non-registered or ill- 1728 formed) internet address. 1730 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 36 1732 [Source: RFC1208] 1734 Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) 1735 The largest frame length which may be sent on a physical medium. See 1736 also: frame, fragment, fragmentation. 1738 mbone 1739 The Multicast Backbone is based on IP multicasting using class-D 1740 addresses. The mbone concept was adopted at the March 1992 IETF in 1741 San Diego, during which it was used to audiocast to 40 people 1742 throughout the world. At the following meeting, in Cambridge, the 1743 name mbone was adopted. Since then the audiocast has become full 1744 two-way audio/video conferencing using two video channels, four audio 1745 channels, and involving hundreds of remote users. See also: 1746 multicast, Internet Engineering Task Force. 1748 MD-2, MD-4, MD-5 1749 See: Message Digest 1751 Media Access Control (MAC) 1752 The lower portion of the datalink layer. The MAC differs for various 1753 physical media. See also: MAC Address, Ethernet, Logical Link 1754 Control, token ring. 1756 Message Digest (MD-2, MD-4, MD-5) 1757 Message digests are algorithmic operations, generally performed on 1758 text, which produce a unique signature for that text. MD-2, 1759 described in RFC 1319; MD-4, described in RFC 1320; and MD-5, 1760 described in RFC 1321 all produce a 128-bit signature. They differ 1761 in their operating speed and resistance to crypto-analytic attack. 1762 Generally, one must be traded off for the other. 1764 message switching 1765 See: packet switching 1767 Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) 1768 A data network intended to serve an area approximating that of a 1769 large city. Such networks are being implemented by innovative 1770 techniques, such as running fiber cables through subway tunnels. A 1771 popular example of a MAN is SMDS. See also: Local Area Network, 1772 Switched Multimegabit Data Service, Wide Area Network. 1773 [Source: NNSC] 1775 MIB 1776 See: Management Information Base 1778 Microcom Networking Protocol (MNP) 1779 A series of protocols built into most modems which error-check or 1781 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 37 1782 compress data being transmitted over a phone line. 1784 mid-level network 1785 Mid-level networks (a.k.a. regionals) make up the second level of the 1786 Internet hierarchy. They are the transit networks which connect the 1787 stub networks to the backbone networks. See also: backbone, 1788 Internet, stub network, transit network. 1790 MIME 1791 See: Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions 1793 MNP 1794 See: Microcom Networking Protocol 1796 moderator 1797 A person, or small group of people, who manage moderated mailing 1798 lists and newsgroups. Moderators are responsible for determining 1799 which email submissions are passed on to list. See also: Electronic 1800 Mail, mailing list, Usenet. 1802 MOSPF 1803 Multicast Open Shortest-Path First. See: Open Shortest-Path First. 1805 MTU 1806 See: Maximum Transmission Unit 1808 MUD 1809 See: Multi-User Dungeon 1811 multicast 1812 A packet with a special destination address which multiple nodes on 1813 the network may be willing to receive. See also: broadcast, unicast. 1815 multihomed host 1816 A host which has more than one connection to a network. The host may 1817 send and receive data over any of the links but will not route 1818 traffic for other nodes. See also: host, router. 1819 [Source: MALAMUD] 1821 Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) 1822 An extension to Internet email which provides the ability to transfer 1823 non-textual data, such as graphics, audio and fax. See also: 1824 Electronic Mail 1826 Multi-User Dungeon (MUD) 1827 Adventure, role playing games, or simulations played on the Internet. 1828 Devotees call them "text-based virtual reality adventures." The 1829 games can feature fantasy combat, booby traps and magic. Players 1831 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 38 1832 interact in real time and can change the "world" in the game as they 1833 play it. Most MUDs are based on the Telnet protocol. See also: 1834 Telnet. 1835 [Source: LAQUEY] 1837 MX Record 1838 See: Mail Exchange Record 1840 NAK 1841 See: Negative Acknowledgment 1843 name resolution 1844 The process of mapping a name into its corresponding address. See 1845 also: Domain Name System. 1846 [Source: RFC1208] 1848 namespace 1849 A commonly distributed set of names in which all names are unique. 1850 [Source: MALAMUD] 1852 National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) 1853 United States governmental body that provides assistance in 1854 developing standards. Formerly the National Bureau of Standards. 1855 [Source: MALAMUD] 1857 National Research and Education Network (NREN) 1858 The NREN is the realization of an interconnected gigabit computer 1859 network devoted to Hign Performance Computing and Communications. 1860 See also: HPPC, IINREN. 1861 [Source: HPCC] 1863 National Science Foundation (NSF) 1864 A U.S. government agency whose purpose is to promote the advancement 1865 of science. NSF funds science researchers, scientific projects, and 1866 infrastructure to improve the quality of scientific research. The 1867 NSFNET, funded by NSF, was once an essential part of academic and 1868 research communications. It was a highspeed, hierarchical "network 1869 of networks." At the highest level, it had a backbone network of 1870 nodes, interconnected with T3 (45Mbps) facilities which spaned the 1871 continental United States. Attached to that were mid-level networks, 1872 and attached to the mid-levels were campus and local networks. See 1873 also: backbone network, mid-level network. 1875 Negative Acknowledgment (NAK) 1876 Response to the receipt of either a corrupted or unnexpected packet 1877 of information. See also: Acknowledgement. 1879 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 39 1880 netfind 1881 A research prototype to provide a simple Internet "white pages" user 1882 directory. Developed at the University of Colorado, Boulder, it 1883 tries to locate telephone and email information given a person's name 1884 and a rough description of where the person works. See also: 1885 Knowbot, whois, white pages, X.500. 1886 [Source: Ryan Moats] 1888 netiquette 1889 A pun on "etiquette" referring to proper behavior on a network. RFC 1890 1855 (FYI 28) contains a netiquette guide produced by the User 1891 Services area of the IETF. See also: Acceptable Use Policy, Internet 1892 Engineering Task Force. 1894 Netnews 1895 See: Usenet 1897 network 1898 A computer network is a data communications system which 1899 interconnects computer systems at various different sites. A network 1900 may be composed of any combination of LANs, MANs or WANs. See also: 1901 Local Area Network, Metropolitan Area Network, Wide Area Network, 1902 internet. 1904 network address 1905 The network portion of an IP address. For a class A network, the 1906 network address is the first byte of the IP address. For a class B 1907 network, the network address is the first two bytes of the IP 1908 address. For a class C network, the network address is the first 1909 three bytes of the IP address. In each case, the remainder is the 1910 host address. In the Internet, assigned network addresses are 1911 globally unique. See also: Internet, IP address, subnet address, 1912 host address, Internet Registry. 1914 Network File System (NFS) 1915 A protocol developed by Sun Microsystems, and defined in RFC 1094 1916 (RFC 1813 defines Version 3), which allows a computer system to 1917 access files over a network as if they were on its local disks. This 1918 protocol has been incorporated in products by more than two hundred 1919 companies, and is now a de facto Internet standard. 1920 [Source: NNSC] 1922 Network Information Center (NIC) 1923 A NIC provides information, assistance and services to network users. 1924 See also: Network Operations Center. 1926 Network Information Services (NIS) 1927 A set of services, generally provided by a NIC, to assist users in 1929 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 40 1930 using the network. See also: Network Information Center. 1932 Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP) 1933 A protocol, defined in RFC 977, for the distribution, inquiry, 1934 retrieval, and posting of news articles. See also: Usenet. 1936 network mask 1937 See: address mask 1939 network number 1940 See: network address 1942 Network Operations Center (NOC) 1943 A location from which the operation of a network or internet is 1944 monitored. Additionally, this center usually serves as a 1945 clearinghouse for connectivity problems and efforts to resolve those 1946 problems. See also: Network Information Center. 1947 [Source: NNSC] 1949 Network Time Protocol (NTP) 1950 A protocol that assures accurate local timekeeping with reference to 1951 radio and atomic clocks located on the Internet. This protocol is 1952 capable of synchronizing distributed clocks within milliseconds over 1953 long time periods. See also: Internet. 1954 [Source: NNSC] 1956 NFS 1957 See: Network File System 1959 NIC 1960 See: Network Information Center 1962 NIC.DDN.MIL 1963 This is the domain name of the DDN NIC. See also: Defense Data 1964 Network, Domain Name System, Network Information Center. 1966 NIS 1967 See: Network Information Services 1969 NIST 1970 See: National Institute of Standards and Technology 1972 NNTP 1973 See: Network News Transfer Protocol 1975 NOC 1976 See: Network Operations Center 1978 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 41 1979 Nodal Switching System (NSS) 1980 Main routing nodes in the NSFnet backbone. See also: backbone, 1981 National Science Foundation. 1982 [Source: MALAMUD] 1984 node 1985 An addressable device attached to a computer network. See also: 1986 host, router. 1988 NREN 1989 See: National Research and Education Network 1991 NSF 1992 See: National Science Foundation 1994 NSS 1995 See: Nodal Switching System 1997 NTP 1998 See: Network Time Protocol 2000 OCLC 2001 See: Online Computer Library Catalog 2003 octet 2004 An octet is 8 bits. This term is used in networking, rather than 2005 byte, because some systems have bytes that are not 8 bits long. 2007 Online Computer Library Catalog 2008 OCLC is a nonprofit membership organization offering computer-based 2009 services to libraries, educational organizations, and their users. 2010 The OCLC library information network connects more than 10,000 2011 libraries worldwide. Libraries use the OCLC System for cataloging, 2012 interlibrary loan, collection development, bibliographic 2013 verification, and reference searching. 2014 [Source: OCLC] 2016 Open Shortest-Path First (OSPF) 2017 A link state, as opposed to distance vector, routing protocol. It is 2018 an Internet standard IGP defined in RFCs 1583 and 1793. The 2019 multicast version, MOSPF, is defined in RFC 1584. See also: Interior 2020 Gateway Protocol, Routing Information Protocol. 2022 Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) 2023 A suite of protocols, designed by ISO committees, to be the 2024 international standard computer network architecture. See also: 2025 International Organization for Standardization. 2027 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 42 2028 OSI 2029 See: Open Systems Interconnection 2031 OSI Reference Model 2032 A seven-layer structure designed to describe computer network 2033 architectures and the way that data passes through them. This model 2034 was developed by the ISO in 1978 to clearly define the interfaces in 2035 multivendor networks, and to provide users of those networks with 2036 conceptual guidelines in the construction of such networks. See 2037 also: International Organization for Standardization. 2038 [Source: NNSC] 2040 OSPF 2041 See: Open Shortest-Path First 2043 packet 2044 The unit of data sent across a network. "Packet" a generic term used 2045 to describe unit of data at all levels of the protocol stack, but it 2046 is most correctly used to describe application data units. See also: 2047 datagram, frame. 2049 Packet InterNet Groper (PING) 2050 A program used to test reachability of destinations by sending them 2051 an ICMP echo request and waiting for a reply. The term is used as a 2052 verb: "Ping host X to see if it is up!" See also: Internet Control 2053 Message Protocol. 2054 [Source: RFC1208] 2056 Packet Switch Node (PSN) 2057 A dedicated computer whose purpose is to accept, route and forward 2058 packets in a packet switched network. See also: packet switching, 2059 router. 2060 [Source: NNSC] 2062 packet switching 2063 A communications paradigm in which packets (messages) are 2064 individually routed between hosts, with no previously established 2065 communication path. See also: circuit switching, connection- 2066 oriented, connectionless. 2068 PD 2069 Public Domain 2071 PDU 2072 See: Protocol Data Unit 2074 PEM 2075 See: Privacy Enhanced Mail 2077 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 43 2078 PGP 2079 See: Pretty Good Privacy 2081 PING 2082 See: Packet INternet Groper 2084 Point Of Presence (POP) 2085 A site where there exists a collection of telecommunications 2086 equipment, usually digital leased lines and multi-protocol routers. 2088 Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) 2089 The Point-to-Point Protocol, defined in RFC 1661, provides a method 2090 for transmitting packets over serial point-to-point links. There are 2091 many other RFCs which define extensions to the basic protocol. See 2092 also: Serial Line IP. 2093 [Source: FYI4] 2095 POP 2096 See: Post Office Protocol and Point Of Presence 2098 port 2099 A port is a transport layer demultiplexing value. Each application 2100 has a unique port number associated with it. See also: Transmission 2101 Control Protocol, User Datagram Protocol. 2103 Post Office Protocol (POP) 2104 A protocol designed to allow single user hosts to read electronic 2105 mail from a server. Version 3, the most recent and most widely used, 2106 is defined in RFC 1725. See also: Electronic Mail. 2108 Postal Telegraph and Telephone (PTT) 2109 Outside the USA, PTT refers to a telephone service provider, which is 2110 usually a monopoly, in a particular country. 2112 postmaster 2113 The person responsible for taking care of electronic mail problems, 2114 answering queries about users, and other related work at a site. See 2115 also: Electronic Mail. 2116 [Source: ZEN] 2118 PPP 2119 See: Point-to-Point Protocol 2121 Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) 2122 A program, developed by Phil Zimmerman, which cryptographically 2123 protects files and electronic mail from being read by others. It may 2124 also be used to digitally sign a document or message, thus 2125 authenticating the creator. See also: encryption, Data Encryption 2127 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 44 2128 Standard, RSA. 2130 Privacy Enhanced Mail (PEM) 2131 Internet email which provides confidentiality, authentication and 2132 message integrity using various encryption methods. See also: 2133 Electronic Mail, encryption. 2135 Prospero 2136 A distributed filesystem which provides the user with the ability to 2137 create multiple views of a single collection of files distributed 2138 across the Internet. Prospero provides a file naming system, and 2139 file access is provided by existing access methods (e.g. anonymous 2140 FTP and NFS). The Prospero protocol is also used for communication 2141 between clients and servers in the archie system. See also: 2142 anonymous FTP, archie, archive site, Gopher, Network File System, 2143 Wide Area Information Servers. 2145 protocol 2146 A formal description of message formats and the rules two computers 2147 must follow to exchange those messages. Protocols can describe low- 2148 level details of machine-to-machine interfaces (e.g., the order in 2149 which bits and bytes are sent across a wire) or high-level exchanges 2150 between allocation programs (e.g., the way in which two programs 2151 transfer a file across the Internet). 2152 [Source: MALAMUD] 2154 protocol converter 2155 A device/program which translates between different protocols which 2156 serve similar functions (e.g. TCP and TP4). 2158 Protocol Data Unit (PDU) 2159 "PDU" is internationalstandardscomitteespeak for packet. See also: 2160 packet. 2162 protocol stack 2163 A layered set of protocols which work together to provide a set of 2164 network functions. See also: layer, protocol. 2166 proxy ARP 2167 The technique in which one machine, usually a router, answers ARP 2168 requests intended for another machine. By "faking" its identity, the 2169 router accepts responsibility for routing packets to the "real" 2170 destination. Proxy ARP allows a site to use a single IP address with 2171 two physical networks. Subnetting would normally be a better 2172 solution. See also: Address Resolution Protocol 2173 [Source: RFC1208] 2175 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 45 2176 PSN 2177 See: Packet Switch Node. 2179 PTT 2180 See: Postal, Telegraph and Telephone 2182 queue 2183 A backup of packets awaiting processing. 2185 RARE 2186 Reseaux Associes pour la Recherche Europeenne. See: Trans-European 2187 Research and Education Networking Association. 2189 RARP 2190 See: Reverse Address Resolution Protocol 2192 RBOC 2193 Regional Bell Operating Company 2195 Read The F*cking Manual (RTFM) 2196 This acronym is often used when someone asks a simple or common 2197 question. 2199 Read The Source Code (RTSC) 2200 This acronym is often used when a software developer asks a question 2201 about undocumented code. 2203 reassembly 2204 The IP process in which a previously fragmented packet is reassembled 2205 before being passed to the transport layer. See also: fragmentation. 2207 recursive 2208 See: recursive 2210 regional 2211 See: mid-level network 2213 remote login 2214 Operating on a remote computer, using a protocol over a computer 2215 network, as though locally attached. See also: Telnet. 2217 Remote Procedure Call (RPC) 2218 An easy and popular paradigm for implementing the client-server model 2219 of distributed computing. In general, a request is sent to a remote 2220 system to execute a designated procedure, using arguments supplied, 2221 and the result returned to the caller. There are many variations and 2222 subtleties in various implementations, resulting in a variety of 2223 different (incompatible) RPC protocols. 2225 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 46 2227 [Source: RFC1208] 2229 repeater 2230 A device which propagates electrical signals from one cable to 2231 another. See also: bridge, gateway, router. 2233 Request For Comments (RFC) 2234 The document series, begun in 1969, which describes the Internet 2235 suite of protocols and related experiments. Not all (in fact very 2236 few) RFCs describe Internet standards, but all Internet standards are 2237 written up as RFCs. The RFC series of documents is unusual in that 2238 the proposed protocols are forwarded by the Internet research and 2239 development community, acting on their own behalf, as opposed to the 2240 formally reviewed and standardized protocols that are promoted by 2241 organizations such as CCITT and ANSI. See also: BCP, FYI, STD. 2243 Reseaux IP Europeens (RIPE) 2244 A collaboration between European networks which use the TCP/IP 2245 protocol suite. 2247 Reverse Address Resolution Protocol (RARP) 2248 A protocol, defined in RFC 903, which provides the reverse function 2249 of ARP. RARP maps a hardware (MAC) address to an internet address. 2250 It is used primarily by diskless nodes when they first initialize to 2251 find their internet address. See also: Address Resolution Protocol, 2252 BOOTP, internet address, MAC address. 2254 RFC 2255 See: Request For Comments 2257 RFC 822 2258 The Internet standard format for electronic mail message headers. 2259 Mail experts often refer to "822 messages." The name comes from RFC 2260 822, which contains the specification. 822 format was previously 2261 known as 733 format. See also: Electronic Mail. 2262 [Source: COMER] 2264 RIP 2265 See: Routing Information Protocol 2267 RIPE 2268 See: Reseaux IP Europeenne 2270 Round-Trip Time (RTT) 2271 A measure of the current delay on a network. 2272 [Source: MALAMUD] 2274 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 47 2275 route 2276 The path that network traffic takes from its source to its 2277 destination. Also, a possible path from a given host to another host 2278 or destination. 2280 routed 2281 Route Daemon. A program which runs under 4.2BSD/4.3BSD UNIX systems 2282 (and derived operating systems) to propagate routes among machines on 2283 a local area network, using the RIP protocol. Pronounced "route- 2284 dee". See also: Routing Information Protocol, gated. 2286 router 2287 A device which forwards traffic between networks. The forwarding 2288 decision is based on network layer information and routing tables, 2289 often constructed by routing protocols. See also: bridge, gateway, 2290 Exterior Gateway Protocol, Interior Gateway Protocol. 2292 routing 2293 The process of selecting the correct interface and next hop for a 2294 packet being forwarded. See also: hop, router, Exterior Gateway 2295 Protocol, Interior Gateway Protocol. 2297 routing domain 2298 A set of routers exchanging routing information within an 2299 administrative domain. See also: Administrative Domain, router. 2301 Routing Information Protocol (RIP) 2302 A distance vector, as opposed to link state, routing protocol. 2303 Version 1 was defined in RFC 1058. The Internet Standard version 2304 (RIPv2)is defined in RFC 2453 (STD 56). See also: Interior Gateway 2305 Protocol, Open Shortest-Path First. 2307 RPC 2308 See: Remote Procedure Call 2310 RSA 2311 A public-key cryptographic system which may be used for encryption 2312 and authentication. It was invented in 1977 and named for its 2313 inventors: Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir, and Leonard Adleman. See also: 2314 encryption, Data Encryption Standard, Pretty Good Privacy. 2316 RTFM 2317 See: Read The F*cking Manual 2319 RTSC 2320 See: Read The Source Code 2322 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 48 2323 RTT 2324 See: Round-Trip Time 2326 SDH 2327 See: Synchronous Digital Hierarchy 2329 Serial Line IP (SLIP) 2330 A protocol used to run IP over serial lines, such as telephone 2331 circuits or RS-232 cables, interconnecting two systems. SLIP is 2332 defined in RFC 1055, but is not an Internet Standard. It is being 2333 replaced by PPP. See also: Point-to-Point Protocol. 2335 server 2336 A provider of resources (e.g. file servers and name servers). See 2337 also: client, Domain Name System, Network File System. 2339 SGML 2340 See: Standardized Generalized Markup Language 2342 SIG 2343 Special Interest Group 2345 signature 2346 The three or four line message at the bottom of a piece of email or a 2347 Usenet article which identifies the sender. Large signatures (over 2348 five lines) are generally frowned upon. See also: Electronic Mail, 2349 Usenet. 2351 Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) 2352 A protocol used to transfer electronic mail between computers. It is 2353 specified in RFC 821, with extensions specified in many other RFCs. 2354 It is a server to server protocol, so other protocols are used to 2355 access the messages. See also: Electronic Mail, Post Office 2356 Protocol, RFC 822. 2358 Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) 2359 The Internet standard protocol developed to manage nodes on an IP 2360 network. The first version is defined in RFC 1157 (STD 15). SNMPv2 2361 (version 2) is defined in too many RFCs to list. It is currently 2362 possible to manage wiring hubs, toasters, jukeboxes, etc. See also: 2363 Management Information Base. 2365 SLIP 2366 See: Serial Line IP 2368 SMDS 2369 See: Switched Multimegabit Data Service 2371 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 49 2372 SMI 2373 See: Structure of Management Information 2375 SMTP 2376 See: Simple Mail Transfer Protocol 2378 SNA 2379 See: Systems Network Architecture 2381 snail mail 2382 A pejorative term referring to the U.S. postal service. 2384 SNMP 2385 See: Simple Network Management Protocol 2387 SONET 2388 See: Synchronous Optical NETwork 2390 Standardized Generalized Markup Language (SGML) 2391 An international standard for the definition of system-independent, 2392 device-independent methods of representing text in electronic form. 2393 See also: Hypertext Markup Language. 2395 STD 2396 A subseries of RFCs that specify Internet standards. The official 2397 list of Internet standards is in STD 1. See also: Request For 2398 Comments. 2400 stream-oriented 2401 A type of transport service that allows its client to send data in a 2402 continuous stream. The transport service will guarantee that all 2403 data will be delivered to the other end in the same order as sent and 2404 without duplicates. See also: Transmission Control Protocol. 2405 [Source: MALAMUD] 2407 Structure of Management Information (SMI) 2408 The rules used to define the objects that can be accessed via a 2409 network management protocol. These rules are defined in RFC 1155 2410 (STD 17). The acronym is pronounced "Ess Em Eye." See also: 2411 Management Information Base. .br [Source: RFC1208] 2413 stub network 2414 A stub network only carries packets to and from local hosts. Even if 2415 it has paths to more than one other network, it does not carry 2416 traffic for other networks. See also: backbone, transit network. 2418 subnet 2419 A portion of a network, which may be a physically independent network 2421 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 50 2422 segment, which shares a network address with other portions of the 2423 network and is distinguished by a subnet number. A subnet is to a 2424 network what a network is to an internet. See also: internet, 2425 network. 2426 [Source: FYI4] 2428 subnet address 2429 The subnet portion of an IP address. In a subnetted network, the 2430 host portion of an IP address is split into a subnet portion and a 2431 host portion using an address (subnet) mask. See also: address mask, 2432 IP address, network address, host address. 2434 subnet mask 2435 See: address mask 2437 subnet number 2438 See: subnet address 2440 supernet 2441 An aggregation of IP network addresses advertised as a single 2442 classless network address. For example, given four Class C IP 2443 networks: 192.0.8.0, 192.0.9.0, 192.0.10.0 and 192.0.11.0, each 2444 having the intrinsic network mask of 255.255.255.0; one can advertise 2445 the address 192.0.8.0 with a subnet mask of 255.255.252.0. See also: 2446 IP address, network address, network mask, Classless Inter-domain 2447 Routing. 2449 Switched Multimegabit Data Service (SMDS) 2450 An emerging high-speed datagram-based public data network service 2451 developed by Bellcore and expected to be widely used by telephone 2452 companies as the basis for their data networks. See also: 2453 Metropolitan Area Network. 2454 [Source: RFC1208] 2456 Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH) 2457 The European standard for high-speed data communications over fiber- 2458 optic media. The transmission rates range from 155.52Mbps to 2459 2.5Gbps. 2461 Synchronous Optical NETwork (SONET) 2462 SONET is an international standard for high-speed data communications 2463 over fiber-optic media. The transmission rates range from 51.84Mbps 2464 to 2.5Gbps. 2466 Systems Network Architecture (SNA) 2467 A proprietary networking architecture used by IBM and IBM-compatible 2468 mainframe computers. 2469 [Source: NNSC] 2471 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 51 2472 T1 2473 A term for a digital carrier facility used to transmit a DS-1 2474 formatted digital signal at 1.544 megabits per second. 2476 T3 2477 A term for a digital carrier facility used to transmit a DS-3 2478 formatted digital signal at 44.746 megabits per second. 2479 [Source: FYI4] 2481 TAC 2482 See: Terminal Access Controller (TAC) 2484 talk 2485 A protocol which allows two people on remote computers to communicate 2486 in a real-time fashion. See also: Internet Relay Chat. 2488 TCP 2489 See: Transmission Control Protocol 2491 TCP/IP Protocol Suite 2492 Transmission Control Protocol over Internet Protocol. This is a 2493 common shorthand which refers to the suite of transport and 2494 application protocols which runs over IP. See also: IP, ICMP, TCP, 2495 UDP, FTP, Telnet, SMTP, SNMP. 2497 TELENET 2498 The original name for what is now SprintNet. It should not be 2499 confused with the Telnet protocol or application program. 2501 Telnet 2502 Telnet is the Internet standard protocol for remote terminal 2503 connection service. It is defined in RFC 854 and extended with 2504 options by many other RFCs. 2506 TERENA 2507 See: Trans-European Research and Education Networking Association 2509 Terminal Access Controller (TAC) 2510 A device which was once used to connect terminals to the Internet, 2511 usually using dialup modem connections and the TACACS protocol. 2512 While the device is no longer in use, TACACS+ is a protocol in 2513 current use. 2515 terminal emulator 2516 A program that allows a computer to emulate a terminal. The 2517 workstation thus appears as a terminal to the remote host. 2518 [Source: MALAMUD] 2520 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 52 2521 terminal server 2522 A device which connects many terminals to a LAN through one network 2523 connection. A terminal server can also connect many network users to 2524 its asynchronous ports for dial-out capabilities and printer access. 2525 See also: Local Area Network. 2527 Three Letter Acronym (TLA) 2528 A tribute to the use of acronyms in the computer field. See also: 2529 Extended Four Letter Acronym. 2531 Time to Live (TTL) 2532 A field in the IP header which indicates how long this packet should 2533 be allowed to survive before being discarded. It is primarily used 2534 as a hop count. See also: Internet Protocol. 2535 [Source: MALAMUD] 2537 TLA 2538 See: Three Letter Acronym 2540 TN3270 2541 A variant of the Telnet program that allows one to attach to IBM 2542 mainframes and use the mainframe as if you had a 3270 or similar 2543 terminal. 2544 [Source: BIG-LAN] 2546 token ring 2547 A token ring is a type of LAN with nodes wired into a ring. Each 2548 node constantly passes a control message (token) on to the next; 2549 whichever node has the token can send a message. Often, "Token Ring" 2550 is used to refer to the IEEE 802.5 token ring standard, which is the 2551 most common type of token ring. See also: 802.x, Local Area Network. 2553 topology 2554 A network topology shows the computers and the links between them. A 2555 network layer must stay abreast of the current network topology to be 2556 able to route packets to their final destination. 2557 [Source: MALAMUD] 2559 traceroute 2560 A program available on many systems which traces the path a packet 2561 takes to a destination. It is mostly used to debug routing problems 2562 between hosts. There is also a traceroute protocol defined in RFC 2563 1393. 2565 Trans-European Research and Education Networking Association (TERENA) 2566 TERENA was formed in October 1994 by the merger of RARE and EARN to 2567 promote and participate in the development of a high quality 2568 international information and telecommunications infrastructure for 2570 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 53 2571 the benefit of research and education. See also: Reseaux Associes 2572 pour la Recherche Europeenne, European Academic and Research Network. 2573 [Source: TERENA Statutes] 2575 transceiver 2576 Transmitter-receiver. The physical device that connects a host 2577 interface to a local area network, such as Ethernet. Ethernet 2578 transceivers contain electronics that apply signals to the cable and 2579 sense collisions. 2580 [Source: RFC1208] 2582 transit network 2583 A transit network passes traffic between networks in addition to 2584 carrying traffic for its own hosts. It must have paths to at least 2585 two other networks. See also: backbone, stub network. 2587 Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) 2588 An Internet Standard transport layer protocol defined in RFC 793. It 2589 is connection-oriented and stream-oriented, as opposed to UDP. See 2590 also: connection-oriented, stream-oriented, User Datagram Protocol. 2592 Trojan Horse 2593 A computer program which carries within itself a means to allow the 2594 creator of the program access to the system using it. See also: 2595 virus, worm. 2597 TTFN 2598 Ta-Ta For Now 2600 TTL 2601 See: Time to Live 2603 tunnelling 2604 Tunnelling refers to encapsulation of protocol A within protocol B, 2605 such that A treats B as though it were a datalink layer. Tunnelling 2606 is used to get data between administrative domains which use a 2607 protocol that is not supported by the internet connecting those 2608 domains. See also: Administrative Domain. 2610 twisted pair 2611 A type of cable in which pairs of conductors are twisted together to 2612 produce certain electrical properties. 2614 UDP 2615 See: User Datagram Protocol 2617 unicast 2618 An address which only one host will recognize. See also: broadcast, 2620 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 54 2621 multicast. 2623 Uniform Resource Locators (URL) 2624 A URL is a compact (most of the time) string representation for a 2625 resource available on the Internet. URLs are primarily used to 2626 retrieve information using WWW. The syntax and semantics for URLs 2627 are defined in RFC 1738. See also: World Wide Web. 2629 Universal Time Coordinated (UTC) 2630 This is Greenwich Mean Time. 2631 [Source: MALAMUD] 2633 UNIX-to-UNIX CoPy (UUCP) 2634 This was initially a program run under the UNIX operating system that 2635 allowed one UNIX system to send files to another UNIX system via 2636 dial-up phone lines. Today, the term is more commonly used to 2637 describe the large international network which uses the UUCP protocol 2638 to pass news and electronic mail. See also: Electronic Mail, Usenet. 2640 urban legend 2641 A story, which may have started with a grain of truth, that has been 2642 embroidered and retold until it has passed into the realm of myth. 2643 It is an interesting phenonmenon that these stories get spread so 2644 far, so fast and so often. Urban legends never die, they just end up 2645 on the Internet! Some legends that periodically make their rounds 2646 include "The Infamous Modem Tax," "Craig Shergold/Brain Tumor/Get 2647 Well Cards," and "The $250 Cookie Recipe." 2648 [Source: LAQUEY] 2650 URL 2651 See: Uniform Resource Locators 2653 Usenet 2654 A collection of thousands of topically named newsgroups, the 2655 computers which run the protocols, and the people who read and submit 2656 Usenet news. Not all Internet hosts subscribe to Usenet and not all 2657 Usenet hosts are on the Internet. See also: Network News Transfer 2658 Protocol, UNIX-to-UNIX CoPy. 2659 [Source: NWNET] 2661 User Datagram Protocol (UDP) 2662 An Internet Standard transport layer protocol defined in RFC 768. It 2663 is a connectionless protocol which adds a level of reliability and 2664 multiplexing to IP. See also: connectionless, Transmission Control 2665 Protocol. 2667 UTC 2668 See: Universal Time Coordinated 2670 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 55 2671 UUCP 2672 See: UNIX-to-UNIX CoPy 2674 uudecode 2675 A program which reverses the effect of uuencode. See also: uuencode. 2677 uuencode 2678 A program which reversibly converts a binary file in ASCII. It is 2679 used to send binary files via email, which generally does not allow 2680 (or garbles) the transmission of binary information. The original 2681 binary can be restored with uudecode. The encoding process generally 2682 creates an ASCII file larger than the original binary, so compressing 2683 the binary before running uuencode is highly recommended. 2685 Veronica 2686 A Gopher utility which effectively searches Gopher servers based on a 2687 user's list of keywords. The name was chosen to be a "mate" to 2688 another utility named "Archie." It later became an acronym for Very 2689 Easy Rodent Oriented Netwide Index to Computer Archives. See also: 2690 archie, Gopher. 2692 virtual circuit 2693 A network service which provides connection-oriented service without 2694 necessarily doing circuit-switching. See also: connection-oriented. 2696 virus 2697 A program which replicates itself on computer systems by 2698 incorporating itself into other programs which are shared among 2699 computer systems. See also: Trojan Horse, worm. 2701 W3 2702 See: World Wide Web 2704 WAIS 2705 See: Wide Area Information Servers 2707 WAN 2708 See: Wide area network 2710 WebCrawler 2711 A WWW search engine. The aim of the WebCrawler Project is to provide 2712 a high-quality, fast, and free Internet search service. The 2713 WebCrawler may be reached at "http://webcrawler.com/". 2714 [Source: WebCrawler's "WebCrawler Facts"] 2716 WG 2717 See: Working Group 2719 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 56 2720 white pages 2721 The Internet supports several databases that contain basic 2722 information about users, such as e-mail addresses, telephone numbers, 2723 and postal addresses. These databases can be searched to get 2724 information about particular individuals. Because they serve a 2725 function akin to the telephone book, these databases are often 2726 referred to as "white pages." See also: Knowbot, netfind, whois, 2727 X.500, InterNIC. 2729 whois 2730 An Internet program which allows users to query a database of people 2731 and other Internet entities, such as domains, networks, and hosts. 2732 The primary database is kept at the InterNIC. The information stored 2733 includes a person's company name, address, phone number and email 2734 address. The latest version of the protocol, WHOIS++, is defined in 2735 RFCs 1834 and 1835. See also: InterNIC, white pages, Knowbot, 2736 netfind, X.500. 2738 Wide Area Information Servers (WAIS) 2739 A distributed information service which offers simple natural 2740 language input, indexed searching for fast retrieval, and a 2741 "relevance feedback" mechanism which allows the results of initial 2742 searches to influence future searches. Public domain implementations 2743 are available. See also: archie, Gopher, Prospero. 2745 Wide Area Network (WAN) 2746 A network, usually constructed with serial lines, which covers a 2747 large geographic area. See also: Local Area Network, Metropolitan 2748 Area Network. 2750 Working Group (WG) 2751 A working group, within the IETF, is a group of people who work under 2752 a charter to achieve a certain goal. That goal may be the creation 2753 of an Informational document, the creation of a protocol 2754 specification, or the resolution of problems in the Internet. Most 2755 working groups have a finite lifetime. That is, once a working group 2756 has achieved its goal, it disbands. There is no official membership 2757 for a working group. Unofficially, a working group member is 2758 somebody who is on that working group's mailing list; however, anyone 2759 may attend a working group meeting. See also: Internet Engineering 2760 Task Force, Birds Of a Feather. 2762 World Wide Web (WWW, W3) 2763 A hypertext-based, distributed information system created by 2764 researchers at CERN in Switzerland. Users may create, edit or browse 2765 hypertext documents. The clients and servers are freely available. 2767 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 57 2768 worm 2769 A computer program which replicates itself and is self-propagating. 2770 Worms, as opposed to viruses, are meant to spawn in network 2771 environments. Network worms were first defined by Shoch & Hupp of 2772 Xerox in ACM Communications (March 1982). The Internet worm of 2773 November 1988 is perhaps the most famous; it successfully propagated 2774 itself on over 6,000 systems across the Internet. See also: Trojan 2775 Horse, virus. 2777 WRT 2778 With Respect To 2780 WWW 2781 See: World Wide Web 2783 WYSIWYG 2784 What You See is What You Get 2786 X 2787 X is the name for TCP/IP based network-oriented window systems. 2788 Network window systems allow a program to use a display on a 2789 different computer. The most widely-implemented window system is 2790 X11 - a component of MIT's Project Athena. 2792 X.25 2793 A data communications interface specification developed to describe 2794 how data passes into and out of public data communications networks. 2795 The CCITT and ISO approved protocol suite defines protocol layers 1 2796 through 3. 2798 X.400 2799 The CCITT and ISO standard for electronic mail. It is widely used in 2800 Europe and Canada. 2802 X.500 2803 The CCITT and ISO standard for electronic directory services. See 2804 also: white pages, Knowbot, whois. 2806 XDR 2807 See: eXternal Data Representation 2809 Xerox Network System (XNS) 2810 A protocol suite developed by Xerox Corporation to run on LAN and WAN 2811 networks, where the LANs are typically Ethernet. Implementations 2812 exist for both Xerox's workstations and 4.3BSD, and 4.3BSD-derived, 2813 systems. XNS denotes not only the protocol stack, but also an 2814 architecture of standard programming interfaces, conventions, and 2815 service functions for authentication, directory, filing, email, and 2817 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 58 2818 remote procedure call. XNS is also the name of Xerox's 2819 implementation. See also: Ethernet, Berkeley Software Distribution, 2820 Local Area Network, Wide Area Network. 2821 [Source: Jeff Hodges] 2823 XNS 2824 See: Xerox Network System 2826 Yahoo! 2828 Yahoo! is a hierarchical subject-oriented guide for the World Wide 2829 Web and Internet. Yahoo! lists sites and categorizes them into 2830 appropriate subject categories. Yahoo! may be reached at 2831 "http://www.yahoo.com/". 2832 [Source: Yahoo's "What is Yahoo?"] 2834 Yellow Pages (YP) 2835 A historic (i.e., no longer in use) service used by UNIX 2836 administrators to manage databases distributed across a network. 2838 YP 2839 See: Yellow Pages 2841 zone 2842 A logical group of network devices. 2844 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 59 2845 References 2847 BIG-LAN "BIG-LAN Frequently Asked Questions Memo", BIG-LAN DIGEST V4:I8, 2848 February 14, 1992. 2850 COMER Comer, Douglas, "Internetworking with TCP/IP: Principles, 2851 Protocols and Architecture", Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, 2852 NJ, 1991. 2854 FYI4 Malkin, G., A. Marine, "FYI on Questions and Answers: Answers to 2855 Commonly asked "New Internet User" Questions", RFC 1325 (FYI 4), 2856 Xylogics, SRI, May 1992. 2858 HACKER "THIS IS THE JARGON FILE", Version 2.9.8, January 1992. 2860 HPCC "Grand Challenges 1993: High Performance Computing and 2861 Communications", Committee on Physical, Mathmatical and 2862 Engineering Sciences of the Federal Coordinating Council for 2863 Science, Engineering and Technology. 2865 MALAMUD Malamud, Carl, "Analyzing Sun Networks", Van Nostrand Reinhold, 2866 New York, NY, 1992. 2868 NNSC "NNSC's Hypercard Tour of the Internet". 2870 LAQUEY LaQuey, Tracy, with Jeanne C. Ryer, "The Internet Companion: A 2871 Beginner's Guide to Global Networking", Addison-Wesley, Reading, 2872 MA, 1992. 2874 NWNET Kochmer, Jonathan, and NorthWestNet, "The Internet Passport: 2875 NorthWestNets Guide to Our World Online", NorthWestNet, 2876 Bellevue, WA, 1992. 2878 RFC1208 Jacobsen, O., D. Lynch, "A Glossary of Networking Terms", RFC 2879 1208, Interop, Inc., March 1991. 2881 STD1 Postel, J., "INTERNET OFFICIAL PROTOCOL STANDARDS", RFC 1920 2882 (STD 1), March 1996. 2884 STD2 Reynolds, J., J. Postel, "ASSIGNED NUMBERS", RFC 1700 (STD 2), 2885 ISI, October 1994. 2887 TAN Tanenbaum, Andrew S., "Computer Networks; 2nd ed.", Prentice 2888 Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1989. 2890 ZEN Kehoe, Brendan P., "Zen and the Art of the Internet", February 2891 1992. 2893 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 60 2894 Security Considerations 2896 While security is not explicitly discussed in this document, some of the 2897 glossary's entries are security related. See the entries for Access 2898 Control List (ACL), authentication, Computer Emergency Response Team 2899 (CERT), cracker, Data Encryption Key (DEK), Data Encryption Standard 2900 (DES), encryption, Kerberos, Message Digest (MD-2, MD-4, MD-5), Pretty 2901 Good Privacy (PGP), Privacy Enhanced Mail (PEM), RSA, Trojan Horse, 2902 virus, and worm. 2904 Editor's Address 2906 Gary Scott Malkin 2907 Nortel Networks 2908 600 Tech Park 2909 Billerica, MA 01821 2911 Phone: (978) 288-3634 2912 Email: gmalkin@nortelnetworks.com 2914 Malkin Expires: 22Aug01 61