takes to a destination. It is mostly used to debug routing
problems between hosts. There is also a traceroute protocol
defined in RFC1393.
Trans-European Research and Education Networking Association (TERENA)
TERENA was formed in October 1994 by the merger of RARE and EARN
to promote and participate in the development of a high quality
international information and telecommunications infrastructure
for the benefit of research and education. See also: Reseaux
Associes pour la Recherche Europeenne, European Academic and
Research Network.
[Source: TERENA Statutes]
transceiver
Transmitter-receiver. The physical device that connects a host
interface to a local area network, such as Ethernet. Ethernet
transceivers contain electronics that apply signals to the cable
and sense collisions.
[Source: RFC1208]
transit network
A transit network passes traffic between networks in addition to
carrying traffic for its own hosts. It must have paths to at
least two other networks. See also: backbone, stub network.
Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)
An Internet Standard transport layer protocol defined in RFC793.
It is connection-oriented and stream-oriented, as opposed to UDP.
See also: connection-oriented, stream-oriented, User Datagram
Protocol.
Trojan Horse
A computer program which carries within itself a means to allow
the creator of the program access to the system using it. See
also: virus, worm.
TTFN
Ta-Ta For Now
TTL
See: Time to Live
tunnelling
Tunnelling refers to encapsulation of protocol A within protocol
B, such that A treats B as though it were a datalink layer.
Tunnelling is used to get data between administrative domains
which use a protocol that is not supported by the internet
connecting those domains. See also: Administrative Domain.
twisted pair
A type of cable in which pairs of conductors are twisted together
to produce certain electrical properties.
UDP
See: User Datagram Protocol
unicast
An address which only one host will recognize. See also:
broadcast, multicast.
Uniform Resource Locators (URL)
A URL is a compact (most of the time) string representation for a
resource available on the Internet. URLs are primarily used to
retrieve information using WWW. The syntax and semantics for URLs
are defined in RFC1738. See also: World Wide Web.
Universal Time Coordinated (UTC)
This is Greenwich Mean Time.
[Source: MALAMUD]
UNIX-to-UNIX CoPy (UUCP)
This was initially a program run under the UNIX operating system
that allowed one UNIX system to send files to another UNIX system
via dial-up phone lines. Today, the term is more commonly used to
describe the large international network which uses the UUCP
protocol to pass news and electronic mail. See also: Electronic
Mail, Usenet.
urban legend
A story, which may have started with a grain of truth, that has
been embroidered and retold until it has passed into the realm of
myth. It is an interesting phenonmenon that these stories get
spread so far, so fast and so often. Urban legends never die,
they just end up on the Internet! Some legends that periodically
make their rounds include "The Infamous Modem Tax," "Craig
Shergold/Brain Tumor/Get Well Cards," and "The $250 Cookie
Recipe."
[Source: LAQUEY]
URL
See: Uniform Resource Locators
Usenet
A collection of thousands of topically named newsgroups, the
computers which run the protocols, and the people who read and
submit Usenet news. Not all Internet hosts subscribe to Usenet
and not all Usenet hosts are on the Internet. See also: Network
News Transfer Protocol, UNIX-to-UNIX CoPy.
[Source: NWNET]
User Datagram Protocol (UDP)
An Internet Standard transport layer protocol defined in RFC768.
It is a connectionless protocol which adds a level of reliability
and multiplexing to IP. See also: connectionless, Transmission
Control Protocol.
UTC
See: Universal Time Coordinated
UUCP
See: UNIX-to-UNIX CoPy
uudecode
A program which reverses the effect of uuencode. See also:
uuencode.
uuencode
A program which reversibly converts a binary file in ASCII. It is
used to send binary files via email, which generally does not
allow (or garbles) the transmission of binary information. The
original binary can be restored with uudecode. The encoding
process generally creates an ASCII file larger than the original
binary, so compressing the binary before running uuencode is
highly recommended.
Veronica
A Gopher utility which effectively searches Gopher servers based
on a user's list of keywords. The name was chosen to be a "mate"
to another utility named "Archie." It later became an acronym for
Very Easy Rodent Oriented Netwide Index to Computer Archives. See
also: archie, Gopher.
virtual circuit
A network service which provides connection-oriented service
without necessarily doing circuit-switching. See also:
connection-oriented.
virus
A program which replicates itself on computer systems by
incorporating itself into other programs which are shared among
computer systems. See also: Trojan Horse, worm.
W3
See: World Wide Web
WAIS
See: Wide Area Information Servers
WAN
See: Wide area network
WebCrawler
A WWW search engine. The aim of the WebCrawler Project is to
provide a high-quality, fast, and free Internet search service.
The WebCrawler may be reached at "http://webcrawler.com/".
[Source: WebCrawler's "WebCrawler Facts"]
WG
See: Working Group
white pages
The Internet supports several databases that contain basic
information about users, such as e-mail addresses, telephone
numbers, and postal addresses. These databases can be searched to
get information about particular individuals. Because they serve
a function akin to the telephone book, these databases are often
referred to as "white pages." See also: Knowbot, netfind, whois,
X.500, InterNIC.
whois
An Internet program which allows users to query a database of
people and other Internet entities, such as domains, networks, and
hosts. The primary database is kept at the InterNIC. The
information stored includes a person's company name, address,
phone number and email address. The latest version of the
protocol, WHOIS++, is defined in RFCs 1834 and 1835. See also:
InterNIC, white pages, Knowbot, netfind, X.500.
Wide Area Information Servers (WAIS)
A distributed information service which offers simple natural
language input, indexed searching for fast retrieval, and a
"relevance feedback" mechanism which allows the results of initial
searches to influence future searches. Public domain
implementations are available. See also: archie, Gopher,
Prospero.
Wide Area Network (WAN)
A network, usually constructed with serial lines, which covers a
large geographic area. See also: Local Area Network, Metropolitan
Area Network.
Working Group (WG)
A working group, within the IETF, is a group of people who work
under a charter to achieve a certain goal. That goal may be the
creation of an Informational document, the creation of a protocol
specification, or the resolution of problems in the Internet.
Most working groups have a finite lifetime. That is, once a
working group has achieved its goal, it disbands. There is no
official membership for a working group. Unofficially, a working
group member is somebody who is on that working group's mailing
list; however, anyone may attend a working group meeting. See
also: Internet Engineering Task Force, Birds Of a Feather.
World Wide Web (WWW, W3)
A hypertext-based, distributed information system created by
researchers at CERN in Switzerland. Users may create, edit or
browse hypertext documents. The clients and servers are freely
available.
worm
A computer program which replicates itself and is self-
propagating. Worms, as opposed to viruses, are meant to spawn in
network environments. Network worms were first defined by Shoch &
Hupp of Xerox in ACM Communications (March 1982). The Internet
worm of November 1988 is perhaps the most famous; it successfully
propagated itself on over 6,000 systems across the Internet. See
also: Trojan Horse, virus.
WRT
With Respect To
WWW
See: World Wide Web
WYSIWYG
What You See is What You Get
X
X is the name for TCP/IP based network-oriented window systems.
Network window systems allow a program to use a display on a
different computer. The most widely-implemented window system is
X11 - a component of MIT's Project Athena.
X.25
A data communications interface specification developed to
describe how data passes into and out of public data
communications networks. The CCITT and ISO approved protocol
suite defines protocol layers 1 through 3.
X.400
The CCITT and ISO standard for electronic mail. It is widely used
in Europe and Canada.
X.500
The CCITT and ISO standard for electronic directory services. See
also: white pages, Knowbot, whois.
XDR
See: eXternal Data Representation
Xerox Network System (XNS)
A protocol suite developed by Xerox Corporation to run on LAN and
WAN networks, where the LANs are typically Ethernet.
Implementations exist for both Xerox's workstations and 4.3BSD,
and 4.3BSD-derived, systems. XNS denotes not only the protocol
stack, but also an architecture of standard programming
interfaces, conventions, and service functions for authentication,
directory, filing, email, and remote procedure call. XNS is also
the name of Xerox's implementation. See also: Ethernet, Berkeley
Software Distribution, Local Area Network, Wide Area Network.
[Source: Jeff Hodges]
XNS
See: Xerox Network System
Yahoo!
Yahoo! is a hierarchical subject-oriented guide for the World Wide
Web and Internet. Yahoo! lists sites and categorizes them into
appropriate subject categories. Yahoo! may be reached at
"http://www.yahoo.com/".
[Source: Yahoo's "What is Yahoo?"]
Yellow Pages (YP)
A historic (i.e., no longer in use) service used by UNIX
administrators to manage databases distributed across a network.
YP
See: Yellow Pages
zone
A logical group of network devices.
References
BIG-LAN "BIG-LAN Frequently Asked Questions Memo", BIG-LAN DIGEST
V4:I8, February 14, 1992.
COMER Comer, Douglas, "Internetworking with TCP/IP: Principles,
Protocols and Architecture", Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs,
NJ, 1991.
FYI4 Malkin, G., A. Marine, "FYI on Questions and Answers: Answers
to Commonly asked "New Internet User" Questions", RFC1325
(FYI 4), Xylogics, SRI, May 1992.
HACKER "THIS IS THE JARGON FILE", Version 2.9.8, January 1992.
HPCC "Grand Challenges 1993: High Performance Computing and
Communications", Committee on Physical, Mathmatical and
Engineering Sciences of the Federal Coordinating Council for
Science, Engineering and Technology.
MALAMUD Malamud, Carl, "Analyzing Sun Networks", Van Nostrand
Reinhold, New York, NY, 1992.
NNSC "NNSC's Hypercard Tour of the Internet".
LAQUEY LaQuey, Tracy, with Jeanne C. Ryer, "The Internet Companion:
A Beginner's Guide to Global Networking", Addison-Wesley,
Reading, MA, 1992.
NWNET Kochmer, Jonathan, and NorthWestNet, "The Internet Passport:
NorthWestNets Guide to Our World Online", NorthWestNet,
Bellevue, WA, 1992.
RFC1208 Jacobsen, O., D. Lynch, "A Glossary of Networking Terms", RFC
1208, Interop, Inc., March 1991.
STD1 Postel, J., "INTERNET OFFICIAL PROTOCOL STANDARDS", RFC1920
(STD 1), March 1996.
STD2 Reynolds, J., J. Postel, "ASSIGNED NUMBERS", RFC1700 (STD
2), ISI, October 1994.
TAN Tanenbaum, Andrew S., "Computer Networks; 2nd ed.", Prentice
Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1989.
ZEN Kehoe, Brendan P., "Zen and the Art of the Internet",
February 1992.
Security Considerations
While security is not explicitly discussed in this document, some of
the glossary's entries are security related. See the entries for
Access Control List (ACL), authentication, Computer Emergency
Response Team (CERT), cracker, Data Encryption Key (DEK), Data
Encryption Standard (DES), encryption, Kerberos, Message Digest (MD-
2, MD-4, MD-5), Pretty Good Privacy (PGP), Privacy Enhanced Mail
(PEM), RSA, Trojan Horse, virus, and worm.
Editor's Address
Gary Scott Malkin
Xylogics/Bay Networks
53 Third Avenue
Burlington, MA 01803
Phone: (617) 238-6237
EMail: gmalkin@Xylogics.COM