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\section*{Glossary of Terms\footnote{From the Atari ST SLIP
FAQ by Dan Akerman, {\tt dackerma@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu}}}

TCP/IP introduces a wide range of terms that most computer users are not
used to, here is a small list to assist in making some sense out of
Internet. And hopefully the documentation that comes with TCP/IP packages.

{\bf address} --- There are two separate uses of this term in internet
networking: ``electronic mail address'' and ``internet address''. An
electronic mail address is the string of characters that you must give an
electronic mail program to direct a message to a particular person. See
``internet address'' for its definition.

{\bf ANSI} --- American National Standards Institute. A group that certifies
organizations which develop U.S. standards for the information processing
industry. ANSI accredited groups participate in defining network protocol
standards.

{\bf ARP} --- Address Resolution Protocol. An Internet protocol which runs
on Ethernet and all IEEE 802.X LANs which maps internet addresses to MAC
addresses.

{\bf ARPANET} --- Advanced Research Projects Agency Network. A pioneering
long haul network funded by ARPA. It served as the basis for early
networking research as well as a central backbone during the development
of the Internet. The ARPANET consisted of individual packet switching
computers interconnected by leased lines.

{\bf AS} --- Autonomous System. A collection of gateways (routers) under a
single administrative authority using a common Interior Gateway Protocol
for routing packets.

{\bf ASCII} --- American (National) Standard Code for Information
Interchange

{\bf B} --- Byte. One character of information, usually eight bits wide.

{\bf b} --- bit = binary digit. The smallest amount of information which may
be stored in a computer.

{\bf BITNET} --- Because It's Time Network. BITNET has about 2\,500 host
computers, primarily at universities, in many countries. It is managed by
EDUCOM, which provides administrative support and information services.
There are three main constituents of the network: BITNET in the United
States and Mexico, NETNORTH in Canada, and EARN in Europe. There are also
AsiaNet, in Japan, and connections in South America. See CREN.

{\bf bps} --- bits per second. A measure of data transmission speed.

{\bf BSD} --- Berkeley Software Distribution. Term used when describing
different versions of the Berkeley UNIX software, as in ``4.3BSD UNIX''.

{\bf catenet} --- A network in which hosts are connected to networks with varying
characteristics, and the networks are interconnected by gateways
(routers). The Internet is an example of a catenet.

{\bf CCITT} --- International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Committee

{\bf core gateway} --- Historically, one of a set of gateways (routers)
operated by the Internet Network Operations Center at BBN. The core
gateway system forms a central part of Internet routing in that all groups
had to advert ise paths to their networks from a core gateway.

{\bf CREN} --- The Corporation for Research and Educational Networking.
BITNET and CSNET have merged to form CREN.

{\bf CSNET} --- Computer + Science Network. A large data communications
network for institutions doing research in computer science. It uses
several different protocols including some of its own. CSNET sites include
universities, research laboratories, and commercial companies. See CREN.

{\bf DARPA} --- U.S. Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency. The government agency that funded the ARPANET and later started
the Internet.

{\bf Datagram} --- A self-contained, independent entity of data carrying
sufficient information to be routed from the source to the destination
data terminal equipment without reliance on earlier exchanges between this
source and destination data terminal equipment and the transporting
network.

{\bf default route} --- A routing table entry which is used to direct any
data addressed to any network numbers not explicitly listed in the routing
table.

{\bf DNS} --- The Domain Name System is a mechanism used in the Internet for
translating names of host computers into addresses. The DNS also allows
host computers not directly on the Internet to have registered names in
the same style, but returns the electronic mail gateway which accesses the
non-Internet network instead of an IP address.

{\bf dot address (dotted address notation)} --- Dot address refers to the
common notation for Internet addresses of the form A.B.C.D; where each
letter represents, in decimal, one byte of the four byte IP address.

{\bf Dynamic Adaptive Routing} --- Automatic rerouting of traffic based on a
sensing and analysis of current actual network conditions. NOTE: this does
not include cases of routing decisions taken on predefined information.

{\bf EBCDIC} --- Extended Binary-coded Decimal Interchange Code

EGP --- Exterior Gateway Protocol. A protocol which distributes routing
information to the gateways (routers) which connect autonomous systems.

{\bf Ethernet} --- A network standard for the hardware and data link levels.
There are two types of Ethernet: Digital/Intel/Xerox (DIX) and IEEE 802.3.

{\bf FDDI} --- Fiber Distributed Data Interface. FDDI is a high-speed
(100\,Mb) token ring LAN.

{\bf FIPS} --- Federal Information Processing Standard

{\bf FSP} --- FSP is an ``UDP-based FTP'', and is a lot like his TCP-based brother.

{\bf FTP} --- File Transfer Protocol. The Internet standard high-level
protocol for transferring files from one computer to another.

{\bf gateway} --- See router

{\bf GB} --- Gigabyte. A unit of data storage size which represents $10^9$
(one billion) characters of information.

{\bf Gb} --- Gigabit. $10^9$ bits of information (usually used to express a
data transfer rate; as in, 1 gigabit/second = 1\,Gbps).

{\bf GNU} --- Gnu's Not UNIX. A UNIX-compatible operating system developed
by the Free Software Foundation.

{\bf header} --- The portion of a packet, preceding the actual data,
containing source and destination addresses and error-checking fields.

{\bf host number} --- The part of an internet address that designates which
node on th e (sub)network is being addressed.

{\bf ICMP} --- Internet Control Message Protocol. ICMP is an extension to
the Internet Protocol. It allows for the generation of error messages,
test packets and informational messages related to IP.

{\bf IEEE} --- Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers

{\bf IETF} --- Internet Engineering Task Force. The IETF is
a large open community of network designers, operators,
vendors, and researchers whose purpose is to coordinate the
operation, management and evolution of the Internet, and to
resolve short- and mid-range protocol and architectural
issues. It is a major source of proposed protocol standards
which are submitted to the Internet Activities Board for
final approval.

{\bf internet internetwork} --- Any connection of two or more local or
wide-area networks.

{\bf Internet} --- The global collection of interconnected local, mid-level
and wide- area networks which use IP as the network layer protocol.

{\bf internet address} --- An assigned number which identifies a host in an
internet. It has two or three parts: network number, optional subnet
number, and host number.

{\bf IP} --- Internet Protocol. The network layer protocol for the Internet.
It is a packet switching, datagram protocol defined in RFC 791.

{\bf ISO} --- International Organization for Standardization

{\bf KB} --- Kilobyte. A unit of data storage size which represents $10^3$
(one thousand) characters of information.

{\bf Kb} --- Kilobit. $10^3$ bits of information (usually used to express a
data transf er rate; as in, 1 kilobit/second = 1\,Kbps = 1\,Kb).

{\bf LAN} --- Local Area Network. A network that takes advantage of the
proximity of computers to offer relatively efficient, higher speed
communications than long-haul or wide-area networks.

{\bf MAC} --- Medium Access Control. For broadcast networks, it is the
method which devices use to determine which device has line access at any
given time.

{\bf MAN} --- Metropolitan Area Network

{\bf MB} --- Megabyte. A unit of data storage size which represents $10^6$
(one million) characters of information.

{\bf Mb} --- Megabit. $10^6$ bits of information (usually used to express a
data transfer rate; as in, 1 megabit/second = 1\,Mbps).

{\bf NBS} --- National Bureau of Standards. Now called NIST.

{\bf network number} --- The part of an internet address which designates
the network to which the addressed node belongs.

{\bf NFS} --- Network File System. A network service that lets a program
running on one computer to use data stored on a different computer on the
same internet as if it were on its own disk.

{\bf NIC} --- Network Information Center. An organization which provides
network users with information about services provided by the network.

{\bf NOC} --- Network Operations Center. An organization that is responsible
for maintaining a network.

{\bf NIST} --- National Institute of Standards and Technology. Formerly NBS.

{\bf NSFNET} --- National Science Foundation Network. The NSFNET is a
highspeed ``network of networks'' which is hierarchical in nature. At the
highest level is a backbone network currently comprising 16 nodes
connected to a 45\,Mbps facility which spans the continental United States.
Attached to that are mid-level networks and attached to the mid-levels are
campus and local networks. NSFNET also has connections out of the U.S. to
Canada, Mexico, Europe, and the Pacific Rim. The NSFNET is part of the
Internet.


{\bf NSFNET} --- Mid-level Level Network. A network connected to the highest
level of the NSFNET that covers a region of the United States. It is to
mid-level networks that local sites connect. The mid-level networks were
once called ``regionals''.

{\bf OSI} --- Open Systems Interconnection. A set of protocols designed to
be an international standard method for connecting unlike computers and
networks. Europe has done most of the work developing OSI and will
probably use it as soon as possible.

{\bf OSPF} --- Open Shortest-Path First Interior Gateway Protocol. A
proposed replacement for RIP. It addresses some problems of RIP and is
based upon principles that have been well-tested in non-internet
protocols. Originally acronymed as OSPFIGP.

{\bf packet} --- The unit of data sent across a packet switching network.
The term is used loosely. While some Internet literature uses it to refer
specificall y to data sent across a physical network, other literature
views the Internet as a packet switching network and describes IP
datagrams as packets.

{\bf PC} --- Personal Computer

{\bf PCNFS} --- Personal Computer Network File System

{\bf PPP} --- Point-to-Point Protocol. The Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP)
provides method for transmitting datagrams over serial point-to-point
links.

{\bf protocol} --- A formal description of message formats and the rules two
computers must follow to exchange those messages. Protocols can describe
low- level details of machine-to-machine interfaces (e.g., the order in
which bits and bytes are sent across a wire) or high-level exchanges
between allocation programs (e.g., the way in which two programs transfer
a file across the Internet).

{\bf RFC} --- The Internet's Request for Comments documents series. The RFCs
are working notes of the Internet research and development community. A
document in this series may be on essentially any topic related to
computer communication, and may be anything from a meeting report to the
specification of a standard.

{\bf RIP} --- Routing Information Protocol. One protocol which may be used
on internets simply to pass routing information between gateways. It is
used on many LANs and on some of the NSFNET intermediate level networks.

{\bf RJE} --- Remote Job Entry. The general protocol for submitting batch
jobs and retrieving the results.

{\bf router} --- A special-purpose dedicated computer that attaches to two
or more networks and routes packets from one network to the other. In
particular, an Internet router forwards IP datagrams among the networks it
connects. Gateways route packets to other gateways until they can be
delivered to the final destination directly across one physical network.

{\bf RPC} --- Remote Procedure Call. An easy and popular paradigm for
implementing the client-server model of distributed computing.

{\bf server} --- A computer that shares its resources, such as printers and
files, with other computers on the network. An example of this is a
Network Files System (NFS) Server which shares its disk space with one or
more workstations that may not have local disk drives of their own.

{\bf SLIP} --- Serial Line Internet Protocol. SLIP is currently a defacto
standard, commonly used for point-to-point serial connections running
TCP/IP. It is not an Internet standard but is defined in RFC 1055.

{\bf SMTP} --- Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. The Internet standard protocol
for transferring electronic mail messages from one computer to another.
SMTP specifies how two mail systems interact and the format of control
messages they exchange to transfer mail.

{\bf SNA} --- System Network Architecture. IBM's data communications protocol.

{\bf SNMP} --- Simple Network Management Protocol. The Simple Network
Management Protocol (RFC 1157) is the Internet's standard for remote
monitoring and management of hosts, routers and other nodes and devices on
a network.

{\bf subnet} --- A portion of a network, which may be a physically
independent network, which shares a network address with other portions of
the network and is distinguished by a subnet number. A subnet is to a
network what a network is to an internet.

{\bf subnet number} --- A part of the internet address which designates a
subnet. It is ignored for the purposes internet routing, but is used for
intranet routing.

{\bf T1} --- A term for a digital carrier facility used to transmit a DS-1
formatted digital signal at 1.544 megabits per second.

{\bf T3} --- A term for a digital carrier facility used to transmit a DS-3 
formatted digital signal at 44.746 megabits per second.

{\bf TCP} --- Transmission Control Protocol. A transport layer protocol for
the Internet. It is a connection oriented, stream protocol defined by RFC
793.

{\bf TCP/IP} --- Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol. This is a
common shorthand which refers to the suite of application and transport
protocols which run over IP. These include FTP, TELNET, SMTP, and UDP (a
transport layer protocol).

{\bf Telenet} --- A public packet-switching network operated by US Sprint.
Also known as ``SprintNet''.

{\bf TELNET} --- The Internet standard protocol for remote terminal
connection service. TELNET allows a user at one site to interact with a
remote timesharing system at another site as if the user's terminal was
connected directly t o the remote computer.

{\bf Token Ring} --- A type of LAN. Examples are IEEE 802.5, ProNET-10/80
and FDDI. The term ``token ring'' is often used to denote 802.5

{\bf Tymnet} --- A public character-switching/packet-switching network
operated by British Telecom.

{\bf UDP} --- User Datagram Protocol. A transport layer protocol for the
Internet. It is a datagram protocol which adds a level of reliability and
multiplexing to IP datagrams. It is defined in RFC 768.

{\bf UNIX} --- An operating system developed by Bell Laboratories that
supports multiuser and multitasking operations.

{\bf UUCP} --- UNIX-to-UNIX Copy Program. A protocol used for communication
between consenting UNIX systems.

{\bf WAN} --- Wide Area Network

{\bf WHOIS} --- An Internet program which allows users to query a database
of people and other Internet entities, such as domains, networks, and
hosts, kept at the DDN NIC. The information for people shows a person's
company name, address, phone number and email address.

{\bf XNS} --- Xerox Network System. A data communications protocol suite
developed by Xerox. It uses Ethernet to move the data between computers.

{\bf X.25} --- A data communications interface specification developed to
describe how data passes into and out of public data communications
networks. The public networks such as Sprintnet and Tymnet use X.25 to
interface to customer computers.

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