A
- AAA
- Authentication,
Authorization, and Accounting.
The name used by
Cisco for the primary services required by
a NAS product.
- ACAP
- Application Configuration Access Protocol,
a standard for accessing program configuration information from a remote
server, allowing a user to use and change their configuration from any
workstation by reading or writing the values on a central server.
Defined in RFC
2244.
- ActiveX
- Microsoft's own take on live web content,
ActiveX is propietary system for embedding controls and the
underlying code into any
OLE
application, most commonly a
web browser.
- ADSL
- Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line
- AFS
- Acronym for the Andrew File System.
A distributed filesystem standard for Unix and Windows NT.
Originally developed at Carnegie Mellon University.
- AGP
Accelerated Graphics Port, a standard for 3d graphics designed by Intel for
their LX chipset motherboards in response to inroads in their market dominance
by clone manufacturers.
- ANI
- Acronym for Automatic Number Identification,
a system similar to
Caller-ID, used by the telephone company and some
classes of subscriber for identifying the caller. Unlike Caller-ID, ANI
delivery is not blocked by * (star) codes.
(suess)
- ANSI
- American National Standards Institute
A private, nonprofit organization operating in the public interest to
coordinate U.S. standards.
Also, a common terminal control protocol for
BBS communications.
- API
- Application Programming Interface, a set of
public (visible to other programs) function calls allowing
communication between programs, or between a program and the
kernel.
- AppleTalk
- A Macintosh-specific network protocol for sharing resources
(files, printers, etc). Appletalk can use special hardware or run on
ethernet.
- ARA
- Apple Remote Access, a protocol allowing network access from Macintosh
systems via dialup. Now almost entirely
obsolete.
- Archie
- A system for searching
FTP site listings, it is available as a
Unix command
and
via telnet.
See also Veronica.
- Archive
- 'är-"KIv
A single large file from which many smaller files can be extracted,
Archive files are often compressed. Generally they are used to
make it easier to transfer large programs and sets of files. Common archive
formats include
ARJ,
TAR,
ZIP, and
ZOO.
- ARJ
- A popular archive program available for MS-DOS and other computers.
See Also:
TAR,
ZIP, and
ZOO.
- ARP
- Acronym for Address Resolution Protocol, a protocol for translating
between IP addresses and
MAC-layer addresses in an
ethernet.
Defined in RFC
826.
See Also:
BOOTP,
DHCP, and
RARP.
- ArpaNet
- Acronym for Advanced Research Project Administration NETwork.
A US Department of Defense project designed as a redudant
WAN capable of surviving a nuclear war.
Precursor of the Internet
- AS
- Autonomous System,
a unique number identifying an Internet-connected network that has
routing policies distinct from their upstream
connection(s). Used in the
BGP routing protocol.
- ASCII
- Acronym for American Standard Code for Information Interchange, which
specifies the standard 7-bit character set.
- ASPI
- Advanced SCSI programming Interface.
The software interface between operating system's device drivers and
a SCSI host adapter.
- Asynchronous
- A method of data transfer in which the device cannot proceed to the next
block of data until it has received positive acknowledgment that the
other device received the block correctly.
See Also: synchronous
- ATM
- Asynchronous Transfer Mode.
The ITU standard for a
cell-relay based communications system encompassing voice,
data and video traffic.
ATM provides standards for 25Mbps and 155Mbps transmission speeds.
- AUI
- Attachment Unit Interface, the standard
ethernet interface between the
NIC and a 10-base5 network.
- Authentication
- Any system by which a system attempts to validate that a user is in
fact who they claim to be, generally using a simple username/password pair.
Strong authentication is generally based on at least two of the three
ways to prove you are approved for access-
- Something you know (a password)
- Something you have (a cardkey or other phsical token)
- Something you are (voiceprint, fingerprint or retina scan)
- AWG
American Wire Gauge, a rating of the diameter of a wire,
the smaller the number, the larger the wire,
and (generally) the higher the current it can carry.
- AXFR
In DNS, any
DNS
request for a complete transfer of all records for a
zone.