BigHostAfrica Customer Manual

• Domain Name - An Internet address in alphabetic form. Domain names must have at least 2 parts: the part on the left which names the organization, and the part on the right which identifies the highest subdomain, such as the country (fr for France, uk for United Kingdom) or the type of organization (com for commercial; edu for educational, etc.). Directory levels can be indicated in other parts. The IP address is translated into the domain name by the domain name server.
   
• Hostname - The unique name that identifies a computer on a network. On the Internet, the host name is in the form "comp.xyz.net"; if there is only one Internet site the host name is the same as the domain name. One computer can have more than one host name if it hosts more than one Internet site, however (for example, "home.xyz.net" and "comp.xyz.net"); in that case "comp" and "home" are host names and "xyz.net" is the domain name.
   
• Nameserver - NameServer or named. A UNIX process that converts hostnames to Internet addresses for TCP/IP.
   
• Resolve - The process in TCP/IP that sends requests to the Domain Name Server to convert hostnames (such as www.bighostafrica.com) to Internet addresses (such as 209.3.65.125).
   
• Whois - An Internet directory service which can be used to find information about users registered on a server, or other information about the network.
   
• IP - Internet Protocol. The IP part of TCP/IP; the protocol that is used to route a data packet from its source to its destination over the Internet.
   
• InterNIC - Internet Network Information Center. A group of three organizations which together provide services for NSFNet. General Atomics handles information services, AT&T handles directory and database services, and Network Solutions, Inc.(NSI) handles registration services. Network addresses and domain names for the Internet are assigned by InterNIC through NSI.
   
• Registry/Registrar - (IR). A service provided by the Defense Data Network's Network Information Center, which has the responsibility of handling network address and Autonomous System identifiers for the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA).

Unix System terms

• Directory - The organization of directories (or folders) and files and on a hard drive, like the branches of an upside-down tree. The main directory is called the "root directory".
   
• Current working directory - Directory that you are currently in.
   
• Parent directory - In a database, the main file containing basic information about an item. One or more child files can be created with more detailed information.
   
• Root directory - The top level in a hierarchical filing system, which comes up when the computer is first turned on. On a PC the root directory is called C:. Other directories branch down from the root directory.
   
• Home directory - The first page on a World Wide Web site, to which supporting pages are linked.
   
• Path - 1.The exact directions to a file on a computer. These directions are usually described by means of the hierarchical filing system from the top down, stating the drive, directory, any subdirectories, the file itself, and its filename extension if it has one: c:jobscompany/resume.txt. This complete set of information is a fully qualified path. 2.The route between any two points, such as the communications channel between two computers.
   
• Absolute path - A designation of the location of a file which is given in relation to the root directory; it includes the root directory and the descending series of subdirectories leading to the end file.
   
• Relative path - A designation of the location of a file in relation to the current working directory, as opposed to an absolute or full path which gives the exact location.
   
• Shell - A software interface between the user and the computer's operating system. The shell interprets commands entered by the user, and passes them on to the operating system. DOS shells are COMMAND.COM and DOS shell; some UNIX shells are the Bourne shell (sh), the C shell (csh), and the Korn shell (ksh).
   
• Login / Username - An individual name of a user on a computer network, which is used for login. It is often the first initials and last name: jdavis. The username is also the part of an email address before the @ symbol: jdavis@somedomain.com.
   
• Group - Groups are a way of assigning specific access rights to cerain classes of users. For example, all users working on project x could be added to a group xproj. System resources (such as disk space) devoted to project x could then be configured to permit only members of xproj full access.
   
• Permissions - The set of identifiers that control access to files. Permissions consist of three fields: user, group and world. The user field controls access by the user owning the file, while the group field controls access by anyone matching the files group specification. As the name implies, the world field controls access by everyone else. Each field contains the same set of bits that specify operations that may or may not be performed, such as reading, writing and executing.
   
• Symlinks - Systems Links. A way of linking or pointing a link to another file or directory in the system.
   
• Localhost - The computer system the user is working on. The remote system is any other system in the network with which the local computer can communicate.
   
• Remote host - A computer system connected to a network such as a LAN or the internet that you have to connect to remotely.
   
• Prompt - A message from the computer that asks the operator to do something, such as enter a command, enter a password, or enter data. An example is the DOS prompt, C:.
   
• Tarfile /tar archive - A UNIX command which copies a file or files to or from an archive.
   
• Spool - Simultaneous Peripheral Operation On-Line. To perform a peripheral operation while the computer is busy with other work. The most common use of spooling is with the printer; files are sent to the print spooler, which organizes a queue and then prints one file after another.
   
• Daemon - A UNIX program that runs continuously in the background, until it is activated by a particular event. This word is often used to refer to programs that handle email. The word daemon is Greek for "an attendant power or spirit.".
   
• Recursive - Referring back to itself. See recursive.
   
• Httpd - Hypertext Transfer Protocol daemon. A World Wide Web server from NCSA, which is compatible with HTTP/1.0.

Internet Services

• HTTP - Apache Hypertext Transfer Protocol daemon. A World Wide Web server from National Center for Supercomputing Applications, which is compatible with HTTP/1.0.It can support forms, server side includes, and searches.
   
• FTP - File Transfer Protocol. A client/server protocol for exchanging files with a host computer. Examples are Xmodem, Ymodem, Zmodem and Kermit.
   
• SMTP - Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. A server-to-server protocol for delivering electronic mail. The standard protocol used on the Internet; also used on other TCP/IP networks.
   
• POP3 - (Post Office Protocol, Version 3). A protocol, or set of rules, by which a client machine can retrieve mail from a mail server.
   
• TELNET - (TN).A terminal emulation protocol that lets a user log in remotely to other computers on the Internet; it has a command line interface. Originally developed for ARPAnet, Telnet runs on top of the TCP/IP protocol.
   
• SSH - Secure Shell Daemon that allows you to remotely connect to other computers on the internet through a series of RSA encrypted keys and is much like telnet in that it is mostly command line.
   
• TCP/IP - (TCP/IP). The Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) on top of the Internet Protocol (IP). These protocols were developed by DARPA to enable communication between different types of computers and computer networks. The Internet Protocol is a connectionless protocol which provides packet routing. TCP is connection-oriented and provides reliable communication and multiplexing.
   
• Ping - Packet Internet Groper. A program used to test whether a particular network destination is online, by sending an Internet control message protocol (ICMP) echo request and waiting for a response. (Also called packet internet gopher).
   
• Traceroute - Traceroute is a way of tracing hops or computers between you and the networked computer you are trying to reach.
   
• Protocol - A set of rules that regulate the way data is transmitted between computers.

Web Design/Server terms

• Source code - A computer program written by a programmer in a source language. Source code is input to a compiler or assembler, in order to derive object code (machine code).
   
• Authoring - Creating a document; especially used for World Wide Web documents.
   
• Binary vs Ascii files - Unix uses different signals for the end of a line of text than Windows or Macintosh. This instructs the FTP server to correctly convert the carriage return signals between formats when uploading or downloading ASCII text files. HTML Files [.html, .html], Perl/CGI Files [.pl, .cgi], and Text files [.txt] should all be transferred using ASCII modes. Any non-text files should be transferred Binary.
   
• SQL - Structured Query Language (pronounced SQL or Sequel). A language used to create, maintain, and query relational databases. It is an ISO and ANSI standard.SQL uses regular English words for many of its commands, which makes it easy to use. It is often embedded within other programming languages.
   
• PERL - Perl is a general-purpose programming language invented in 1987 by Larry Wall.With over one million users worldwide, it has become the language of choice for World Wide Web development, text processing, Internet services, mail filtering, graphical programming, systems administration, and every other task requiring portable and easily-developed solutions.
   
• CGI - Common Gateway Interface. A way of interfacing computer programs with HTTP or WWW servers, so that a server can offer interactive sites instead of just static text and images.
   
• SSI - Server Side Includes. The ability to include files from the server inside an HTML document by placing tags in the HTML file that link to those files. Using server-side includes makes it unnecessary to include multiple copies of the same information in the HTML file, and make it easier to work with frequently-updated information. 
   
• .htaccess - This is an apache directives file. It is a method for modifying the way apache behaves for a specific directory. An example of this is password protected directories which you can setup using your cpanel. The cpanel will generate the appropriate .htaccess file for this task.