The Grooving Arts Band Cellar - Internet Glossary

Here's a little Internet glossary I had to make for a course at university. I don't mind if your read it, so go on ;-)

Bridge

A bridge is a special-purpose network component to connect networks. It transmits data packets from one net segment to another without checking the address information. Bridges are protocol independent.

DNS

DNS stands for Domain Name Service or Domain Name System and is a large database on different so called DNS servers in the Internet which serves as lookup table for translating the URL of a server to the corresponding IP address. DNS is comparable to a telephone book that automatically retrieves the IP address of a server using its URL.

E-mail

Electronic mails are messages, usually in text form, sent from one person to another via computer over the Internet. E-mail is the electronical counterpart to normal mail (often referred to as snail mail). E-mails are sent using the SMTP protocol and downloaded from a mail server using POP (= Post Office Protocol).

FAQ

FAQ stands for Frequently Asked Questions and is a collection of oftenly asked questions and their answers. Almost all the newsgroups on Usenet have own FAQs so that newbies to the newsgroup won't ask the same questions over and over again.

FTP

The File Transfer Protocol is the standard protocol for downloading or uploading files to or from a local computer. There are many Internet sites that have established publicly accessible repositories of material that can be obtained using FTP, by logging in using the account name "anonymous". These sites are so called "anonymous ftp servers".

HTML

The HyperText Markup Language is the standard document description language of the World Wide Web. HTML is standardized by the W3C and is currently available in version 4.0.

HTTP

HTTP stands for HyperText Transfer Protocol. It is the standard protocol for transfering HTML documents over the Internet. HTTP is basically the protocoll that defines the agreed upon set of rules that web browsers and servers use to communicate.

IP address

An IP address is a 32 bit number uniquely identifying every computer in the Internet. An IP address has the form a.b.c.d where a, b, c and d are decimal integer numbers from 0 to 255. E.g. the IP address 127.0.0.1 is the so called loopback address and always identifies the local computer.

ISO/OSI Model

This model, knows as the Open Systems Interconnection or short OSI, was developed in 1974 by the ISO the International Standards Organization, ISO. The model divides into seven layers. Each layer does specific functions which allow application software on different system architectures to communicate with each other as if they were operating on the same system. The seven layers in sequence of bottom to top are the physical layer, the data link layer, the network layer, the transport layer, the session layer, the presentation layer and finally the application.

MX-Record

A Mail eXchange Record is a DNS resource record type indicating which host can handle mail for a particular domain.

NNTP

The Network News Transfer Protocol is the standard protocol used in Usenet for the administration of the many available newsgroups.

RFC

Request For Comments name the result and the process of creating a standard on the Internet. Before new standards can be agreed upon they are proposed and published as Request For Comments. Each new standard gets a unique RFC number, e.g. the official standard for e-mail is RFC822.

Router

A router is a special-purpose network hardware component (or software package) that handles the connection between 2 or more networks (for example between a LAN and the Internet). Routers check the address information of packets going through them and change the addresses if necessary so that the data packets find their rightful receiver. Routers are protocol dependent (i.e. an IPX router cannot be used on an IP network).

SMTP

The Simple Mail Transfer Protocol is the standard protocol for sending e-mails to your mail server and eventually to the final recipient of a message. It usually uses only 7 bit ASCII for sending mails.

Telnet

Telnet is the oldest Internet service. It is used to remote control hosts. If you connect to a host through the Telnet port (usually port 23) the local computer behaves as a terminal. Telnet usually operates command line oriented using VT100 terminal emulation.

URL

URL is short for Uniform Resource Locator and is a standardised format for specifying Internet addresses in a readable form. The general format of an URL is "protocol://server:port/path/file" for example "http://members.liwest.at/GroovingArts/index.html".