Computer Networking Glossary

First draft is nearly ready....

I shall add one-line definitions or expansions of each term.

Please let me have suggestions for missing terms or corrections by email (djg11@cam).

Items are prefixed with a priority. Priority 1 terms should be understood by all. Familiarity with priority 3 terms should not be needed for examination purposes.

Items




1; ARP and RARP; Address resolution protocol and its reverse.
1; TCP and SYN/ACK;
1; IP; Internet Protocol;
1; UDP; user datagram protocol;
1; ICMP; Internet Control Message Protocol;
1; RED; Random early discard; A congestion notification system;
1; ECN; Explicit congestion notification; A congestion notification system;
1; NAT; network address translation; A means to share IP addresses
1; DNS, DNSSEC, RR; Domain name server, secure version and resource records
1; DHCP; dynamic host configuration protocol;
1; VPN; virtual private network;
1; VLAN; virtual local-area network;
1; RTT; round trip time
1; MTU and MSS; maxiumum transfer unit and maximums segment side; limits on L2 and L4 packet size
1; L2 or L3 PDU; protocol data unit ; a packet at a given protocol layer
1; Bytestream; The service offered by TCP
1; TTL; time to live
1; MAC; media access control protocol; rules for sending on a shared medium
1; MAC address; address used at L2, typically 48 bits
1; LAN + WAN; local + wide area network;
1; NIC; network interface card; typically not a separate card these days --- more likely to be an IP block on a SoC
1; ROM; read-only memory
1; PHY; physical layer
1; DLL; data-link layer
1; IP; internept protocol
1; IP Address; layer 3 address, 32 bits for IPv4. 4x larger for IPv6.
1; BGP; boarder gateway protocol;
1; OSPF; open shortest-path first; a routing protocol
1; IGP; interiour gateway protocol;
1; CDN and load balancing; contend delivery network
1; URL or URI; uniform resource locator or indicator (web address if starts http).
1; HTTP and HTML; hypertext transfer protocol and and language
1; CRC; cyclic redundancy check; like a checksum but far more sensitive to errors (lower criticial path in h/w implementations too)
1; TLS and SSL/ssh; transport-layer security, secure socket layer, secure shell;
1; Simplex, Duplex and Half-duplex;
1; Unicast, broadcast, multicast, anycast;
1; Mbps, MBps and Mbaud; megabits per second, megabytes per second and millions of signalling intervals per second at the PHY level
1; RTT; round-trip time;
1; FDM and TDM; frequency and time-division multiplexing;
1; RTS and CST; request-to-send and clear-to-send;
1; CSMA and CSMA/CD; carrier-sense multiple access and collision-detect;
1; SLAAC and CIDR? - not lectured 25/26;
1; flow; ; A concatenation of source and destination port and MAC addresses into a single opaque identifier/concept
1; localhost; ; alias for the current endpoint, regardless of its actual name. IP address 127.0.0.1;
1; ACK and NACK; acknowledge and negative acknowledge;
1; Ping and pong; ICMP connectivty test message and (colloquial) response.
1; windows CWND and RWND; for a transport protocol
1; GBN; Go-back-N; a transport protocol recovery mechanism
1; ARQ;
1; SR or SACK; selective repeat/acknowledgement
1; ISN; Initial sequence number
1; TX and RX
1; AIMD; Additive Increase Multiplicative Decrease
1; FQ; RR and WRR;
1; QUIC;
1; E2E; end-to-end
1; ISP; Internet service provider
1; HOL blocking;
1; DASH; Dynamic adaptive streaming over HTTP
1; TLD; Top-level domain
1; CDMA; carrier-detect multiple access
1; QUIC;

Priority 2


2; websockets - not to be confused with sockets;
2; PPP; point-to-point protocol
2; uPNP; universal plug-and-play
2; NFS; network file system
2; SMTP and POP; Email not lectured 25/26
2; RFC and IETF
2; RSSI; Receive strength/signal indication; metric for amount of PHY signal arriving at the receiver.
2; CNAME, NS and MX;
2; DDoS attack,
2; HTTP Post Get Head Put Redirect;
2; ARQ; Automatic repeat request; primary basis of a reliable transport protocol
2; SACK; selective acknowledgment in a transport protocol

2; HFC; hybrid fibre/coax cable TV (CATV) WAN
2; PON; passive optical network (fused fibre system typically serving 100 houses) - 100 way split traded for a 20 dB path loss
2; NRZ; non-return to zero (serial digital bits)
2; NRZI; non-return to zero invert on ones (serial bits where a change indicates a 'one') - polarity insensitive
2; PCM; pulse code modulation - digital audio
2; P2P point-to-point protocol (not lectured?)
2; GBN; Go-back N in a transport protocol

Priority 3


3; SCTP; MTCP; SST; RDP; DCCP ... not likley to be lectured

3; SDH and Sonet;
3; QPSK; quadrature phase-shift keying; Separate amplitude modulation of a sine and cosine carrier of the same frequency transmitted together (more energy efficient than using many more amplitude levels on just a sine wave carrier).
3; OFDM;
3?; STUN + TURN perhaps?