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Hosting glossary
| TERM | DEFINITION |
|
Ad Server |
An ad server is a computer server, specifically a web server that stores advertisements used in online marketing and delivers them to the website visitors. |
|
Add-on Domain |
It is another domain (domain2.com),added to a cPanel account that acts as if it is separate from the main domain, which the cPanel manages (domain.com). |
|
Anonymous FTP |
This allows people without FTP accounts to access a special directory to upload or download files. |
|
Apache Handlers |
Handlers tell the web server itself how to handle certain types of files (.html, .cgi, .pl, and so on). |
| Backup | The process of copying important data is backup. It is useful in case the original data becomes damaged or goes missing for some reason. |
| Background Process | A background process is a process running independently of the current process. It may create files on its own without input/output from the main program. |
| Bandwidth | A measure of how much data is transferred to or from your website, e-mail, or FTP hosting account. Typically, this is measured in computer gigabytes (1 GB = 1,024 MB). |
| Bounced Email | They are the email messages that get returned back to the sender because of some sort of problem and they are not delivered to the specified email address. |
| CMS | Web content management systems are used to create powerful websites with a user friendly interface. They help to setup and manage your site content. |
| Common Gateway Interface (CGI) | Common Gateway Interface (CGI) is the interface that allows external applications to access web servers. Depending on the setup of the web server, some programming languages can only be accessed via CGI (for example, Perl or Python). |
| ClamAV | ClamAV is a free open-source virus scanner. |
| cPanel | It is a popular web-based hosting control software package. The company that develops this software also goes by the same name. It is called cPanel Inc. |
| Cron Jobs | Cron Jobs are the commands or web scripts that the web server executes at a particular time. |
| Daemons | A daemon is a long running process that you wouldn't normally stop/start. Sometimes they provide kernel services. If you look at Unix, anything ending with a’d’, such as httpd, is a daemon. |
| Database | Databases are used to store information for quick retrieval. Many web scripts require using at least one database. |
| Dedicated Server | Dedicated server is an entire web server (physical machine) dedicated for your use. You can use it to sell the shared or reseller hosting or use for some other purpose if you choose. |
| Dictionary Attack | A method often used by spammers. They send various emails or passwords to a domain hoping that one will succeed. |
| Disk Space | It is a measure of how much stuff you can store on a server or in your hosting account. Disk space is usually measured in computer megabytes (1 MB = 1024 Kb). |
| DNS | DNS is known as Domain Name Service. The system that allows domain names to be translated into their corresponding IP addresses (111.111.111.111). |
| Domain Name | The name of a website or location on the Internet. A domain name resolves to an IP address via DNS. |
| Domain Point |
It takes domain parking another step further by allowing multiple domains which resolve to different index pages or directories on the same hosting account. Domain pointing would come into play if one wanted to maintain two distinctly different web sites, while paying and maintaining only one hosting account (aka a "twofer" deal). Example: www.apples.com -> http://apples.com/index.html www.oranges.com -> http://apples.com/oranges/index.html With domain pointing, the additional domain name(s) point to a subdirectory on the account, however this is invisible to the visitors (www.apples.com/oranges is recognized and treated as the root directory of www.oranges.com. In the same way as www.apples.com/oranges is recognized and handled as oranges.apples.com if you were to make it a subdomain). Most of our plans provide domain pointers for free. |
| Domain parking |
Domain parking refers to the process of adding additional domain names to a hosting account with all the domain names resolving to the account's index page. Example: processor.com -> http://processor.com/index.html cpu.com -> http://processor.com/index.html All our accounts include the ability to park at least up to 10 extra domains, again with all the domains directing traffic to a single index page (i.e. one website which can be accessed using multiple domain names). A common example of domain parking would be a company who purchases the rights to theircompanyname.com and theircompanyname.net and wishes to have its users be able to get to their site via either domain. |
| Domain Propagation |
Propagation is the period of time or delay, involved in sending your domain's address information to various name servers in the world. Name servers intentionally keep track of addresses for domains in their memory for a specific period of time (defined by the administrator of the name server). This speeds up the process of looking up an address for a domain name. Unfortunately, this "cached" information also stays in the name servers even when it has been changed at the source of the original information (the domain's registrar). Name servers refresh themselves from once an hour to once a day. Experience indicates that 2-3 days is a good estimate for the period of time from when a domain's DNS information is changed at the domain registrar to when everyone in the world can see the change. |
| DOS Attack | DOS (Denial of Service) attack is a sort of attack which uses many computers to flood your web server with fake requests for information with the hope of taking the server or your site off the Internet. |
| Email Address | This is the address of the particular person who you wish to send an email. For example, u[email protected]. E-mail addresses always include the @ (at sign). |
| Email Alias/Forwarder | An email address that sends an e-mail automatically to another e-mail address or addresses without storing the e-mail. |
| Email Body | The main section of the email with whatever text you have written. |
| Email Filter | A filter takes action by redirecting, deleting, or storing incoming e-mail based on the criteria you set. |
| Email Headers | Several lines of information that appear prior to the body of an e-mail message. The headers contain a lot of information about where the mail has come from and which mail server received it. Most e-mail programs don't show full headers by default since there can be so many of them. If you are having problems with spam or bounced e-mail messages, the full headers of the message contain information that can help track down the problem. |
| FrontPage Extensions | Special code that runs on a web server to enable additional features in Microsoft's FrontPage HTML editor program. Do not enable the FrontPage extensions unless you plan to use Microsoft FrontPage exclusively to edit your website. The extensions interfere with other features that cPanel and Apache offer. |
| FTP | FTP is a File Transfer Protocol for transferring and working with files and directories on a remote server. |
| FXP | FXP is File Exchange Protocol that directly interacts between two separate FTP accounts you are logged into, via your FTP client. |
| Hit | A request for a web page or other content on your website. |
| Hotlink Protection | Stops other people on other websites linking directly to your files unless they have approval from you to do so. |
| IMAP | This is a protocol for fetching email from a remote web server. IMAP is designed to manage all mails on the remote mail server. IMAP is a good protocol to use, if you travel a lot and want to access all your mails from anywhere. However, if your mail server is having problems, you may not be able to access any mail (even old mail) until the server comes back online. |
| Index Page | The index page (index.html, index.htm) is the first page accessed when someone visits that domain or subdomain. |
| Kernel | The core of the Linux operating system. |
| Leech Protection | Stops the users with valid user logins from giving out their access to anyone else. Leech Protection disables a user's access, if it is used too many times to access your site or protected material. It works with the Apache password-protected directory feature. |
| Mailbox | The location where mail is stored for an email address. |
| Mailer-Daemon |
Mailer-daemon is an email server software responsible for message delivery. Messages from [email protected] usually indicate a problem with the recipient's mail server or address. For example, a common problem that causes a mailer Daemon message is, sending a message to an incorrect e-mail address. If you send legitimate email to a valid account and still get responses back from mailer-daemon, your domain may be on the blacklist. |
| MX Record | An MX (Mail Exchange) record tells the server, where the e-mail for a particular domain should be sent. |
| MySQL | MySQL is a relational database management system (RDBMS) based on SQL. As the most popular Open Source SQL database management system, MySQL is developed, distributed, and supported by MySQL AB. Because MySQL is lightweight, open source and free, it is a foundation for many amateur, non-professional, or open source projects like Joomla, WordPress. |
| Parked Domain | A domain that mirrors the content of the main domain managed in webhosting control panel. |
| Password Authentication | This is one method you can use to prove that the email account is yours. You enter your account username and password. |
| Password Protected Directories | Apache can require that users log in before accessing a particular directory of your website. People without valid log-in credentials will be denied access. |
| Payment Gateway | Another name for a Merchant Account. This allows you to accept credit cards and other electronic payments. |
| PGP | PGP (Pretty Good Privacy): A highly secure encryption system with public and private keys. |
| PHP | A programming language that a lot of web-based scripts use. PHP is a server-side scripting language for creating dynamic web pages. You can create pages with PHP and HTML. When a visitor opens the page, the server processes the PHP commands and then sends the results to the visitor's browser, just as with ASP or ColdFusion. Unlike ASP or ColdFusion, however, PHP is Open source and cross-platform. PHP runs on Windows NT and many UNIX versions, and it can be built as an Apache module and as a binary that can run as a CGI. |
| phpMyAdmin | Web-based program that allows you to manipulate MySQL databases. |
| PhpPgAdmin | Web-based program that allows you to manipulate Postgre-SQL databases. |
| Ping | The amount of time (typically listed in milliseconds) that it takes for a server to respond to a request. Longer times mean the connection will be slower. Ping times can be affected by a wide range of issues, like the physical distance between you and the server itself, routing issues somewhere between the server and your current location, problems on the server or problems locally (perhaps with your ISP). |
| POP3 | This is a protocol for fetching email from a mail server. This method was designed to retrieve mails from a remote mail server and store the e-mails locally. Mail fetched via POP3 typically gets removed from a server once your e-mail client has fetched the mail (though you can change this behavior). Since mail is removed from the server, you typically can only read old mail in the email program used to download the messages. If your mail server goes down, you will still be able to access old mail locally without an internet connection. |
| POP-Before-SMTP Authentication | An alternative SMTP (send mail) authentication method. To use this method, you must log in to your e-mail account via POP3 and check your e-mail. If you do that successfully, then you will be able to send e-mail from that account for 30 minutes via SMTP without having to enter the account username and password again. This is somewhat less secure than password authentication and not all web hosts support it. |
| Propagation | Propagation is the process where your new DNS information is spread to all the computers in the world. This process can take up to 48 hours to complete. Until propagation is complete, your domain and emails will not work consistently. |
| Raw Web Log | The log created by Apache or IIS as the users access websites on the web server. |
| Redirect | A redirect sends anyone who accesses a web page to a new location. Redirects come in two forms, temporary and permanent. A temporary redirect is used for content that may have moved to a new location, but isn't going to be there forever (useful for search engine indexing). A permanent redirect tells search engines that the new location is permanent and they should update their records and stop linking to the old URL for that resource. |
| Reseller Hosting | Reseller hosting is similar to shared hosting, except that you are allowed to resell shared hosting accounts to others. Please click here to know more. |
| Reverse DNS | A Reverse DNS Lookup is when someone searches your IP address to match it to your domain. A reverse DNS record is a common name for a PTR record. |
| Session | The entire contiguous period of time that a user visits your website before leaving it to go elsewhere. |
| SFTP | A secure (encrypted) version of the FTP protocol. |
| SPF |
Sender Policy Framework (SPF) is a relatively new method of fighting spam. An SPF record is a type TXT record placed into a domain's DNS zone. The string placed within the TXT record specifies a list of authorized host names/IP addresses that mail can originate from for a given domain name. Once this entry is placed within the DNS zone, no further configuration is necessary to take advantage of servers that incorporate SPF checking into their anti-spam systems. These are added in the same way as a regular A, MX, or CNAME record. A typical TXT record for SPF looks like this: example.com IN TXT v=spf1 a: domain.com ~all. |
| SPF Record | An SPF record is an entry added to the DNS zone for a domain. This record verifies that a user has permission to send mail from that domain. This is used to prevent spoofing. |
| SSH | SSH is Secure Shell protocol for interacting remotely with a computer via a text-based interface. SSH is a secure version of Telnet. |
| SSL Certificate |
SSL stands for "Secure Sockets Layer," which is a protocol for encrypting confidential information, such as passwords and credit card information, transmitted over the internet. You can ensure that a site is using SSL with the address that starts with "https://" and a lock icon that's displayed in the browser's toolbar. In order to provide a service, like online banking over SSL, a secure server certificate is required. For real use, the certificate also needs to be digitally signed by a trusted certificate authority. Web browsers have a list of the authorities, such as GlobalSign, Thawte and Verisign, from which they will accept a signed certificate. If the certificate is not properly signed, the SSL connection can still work, but the web browser may give a warning about the certificate. An SSL certificate is usually purchased on an yearly basis. |
| Subdomains | Subdomains are addresses like subdomain.domain.com. A subdomain can either act as if it were an entirely different site, not part of your primary domain or it can serve as a shortcut to redirect you to another place either in your site or to anywhere on the internet. |
| Telnet | An insecure (unencrypted) protocol for interacting remotely with a computer via a text-based interface. Telnet has largely been subsumed by SSH, a secure version of the Telnet protocol. |
| Theme | A unique visual look given to a program or a web page. A cPanel theme also can offer additional features and functionalities. |
| Traceroute | The traceroute command lists the route your data would take between your computer and the domain that you type in. Each stop on the trip will list the response time (ping) from each server in milliseconds. Lower numbers are better; high numbers mean your connection may be adversely affected. |
| VPS/VDS Hosting | VPS (Virtual Private Server) or VDS (Virtual Dedicated Server) hosting are different names for the same type of hosting accounts. Such accounts use special software to take a single physical web server and divide it into 2 or more separate virtual web servers. Each virtual server acts as if it is a completely separate machine. |
| Web Stat Program | A program like Analog, Webalizer, or AWSTATS that interprets the raw data in the Apache raw web logs and condenses that information into useful charts and graphs. |
| Web Statistics | Basic information about where your visitors came from, how they found your site and what sort of computer and browser they used during the visit. This information comes from the Apache raw web log. |
| Web Statistics Terminology |
The following is a simplified listing of the terms found in your web statistic reports: Hits = number of total requests for files made to the server. Files = number of requests in which any type of file was returned. Sites = number of unique IP addresses/hostnames making requests. Visits = number of times unique sites have requested pages. Pages = number of actual page views (requests for .htm .html .cgi). KB = total amount of data transferred in kilobytes. Sites = individual computers which make server requests. Referrers = URLs which link to your site or trigger server requests. Search Strings = keywords entered into search engines resulting in hits. User Agents = web browsers. Entry Pages = initial file requested during a visit. Exit Pages = last file requested during a visit. Countries = location of sites making requests determined by TLD. |
| Website/Webhosting |
A website is a collection of related web pages, images, videos or other digital assets that are hosted on one web server, usually accessible via the internet. A web page is a document, typically written in HTML, which is almost always accessible via HTTP, or less often HTTPS, a protocol that transfers information from the web server to display in the user's web browser. Basically, web hosting providers provide hosting services on Linux or Windows Servers. Linux Server supports PHP, CGI, MYSQL(Database), and Open Source Scripts. Windows Server supports ASP, ASP.NET, MS Access, MSSQL(Database) and also PHP and MYSQL .One may also create static webpages using html, Javascript which can run both on Windows as well as Linux server. You need domain name and server space to upload the pages on the server (Linux or Windows). You have to upload the web page using FTP user name and password provided by the hosting provider, once hosting gets activated. It makes your site live on the server and visible on the internet with your URL. |
| Web Application Framework |
A web application framework is a software that aims to reduce server work associated with common activities used in web development. For example, many frameworks provide libraries, templates, style sheets and anything else that can reuse code. |
| WHOIS | A whois search finds the registration information on a domain name. The whois information is the domain owner's contact information. |