FreeBSD Glossary

This glossary contains terms and acronyms used within the FreeBSD community and documentation.

A

ACL

Patrz: Access Control List

ACPI

Patrz: Advanced Configuration and Power Interface

AMD

Patrz: Automatic Mount Daemon

AML

Patrz: ACPI Machine Language

API

Patrz: Application Programming Interface

APIC

Patrz: Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller

APM

Patrz: Advanced Power Management

APOP

Patrz: Authenticated Post Office Protocol

ASL

Patrz: ACPI Source Language

ATA

Patrz: Advanced Technology Attachment

ATM

Patrz: Asynchronous Transfer Mode

ACPI Machine Language
(AML)

Pseudocode, interpreted by a virtual machine within an ACPI-compliant operating system, providing a layer between the underlying hardware and the documented interface presented to the OS.

ACPI Source Language
(ASL)

The programming language AML is written in.

Access Control List
(ACL)

A list of permissions attached to an object, usually either a file or a network device.

Advanced Configuration and Power Interface
(ACPI)

A specification which provides an abstraction of the interface the hardware presents to the operating system, so that the operating system should need to know nothing about the underlying hardware to make the most of it. ACPI evolves and supercedes the functionality provided previously by APM, PNPBIOS and other technologies, and provides facilities for controlling power consumption, machine suspension, device enabling and disabling, etc.

Application Programming Interface
(API)

A set of procedures, protocols and tools that specify the canonical interaction of one or more program parts; how, when and why they do work together, and what data they share or operate on.

Advanced Power Management
(APM)

An API enabling the operating system to work in conjunction with the BIOS in order to achieve power management. APM has been superseded by the much more generic and powerful ACPI specification for most applications.

Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller
(APIC)
Advanced Technology Attachment
(ATA)
Asynchronous Transfer Mode
(ATM)
Authenticated Post Office Protocol
(APOP)
Automatic Mount Daemon
(AMD)

A daemon that automatically mounts a filesystem when a file or directory within that filesystem is accessed.

B

BAR

Patrz: Base Address Register

BIND

Patrz: Berkeley Internet Name Domain

BIOS

Patrz: Basic Input/Output System

BSD

Patrz: Berkeley Software Distribution

Base Address Register
(BAR)

The registers that determine which address range a PCI device will respond to.

Basic Input/Output System
(BIOS)

The definition of BIOS depends a bit on the context. Some people refer to it as the ROM chip with a basic set of routines to provide an interface between software and hardware. Others refer to it as the set of routines contained in the chip that help in bootstrapping the system. Some might also refer to it as the screen used to configure the boostrapping process. The BIOS is PC-specific but other systems have something similar.

Berkeley Internet Name Domain
(BIND)

An implementation of the DNS protocols.

Berkeley Software Distribution
(BSD)

This is the name that the Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG) at The University of California at Berkeley gave to their improvements and modifications to AT&T's 32V UNIX®. FreeBSD is a descendant of the CSRG work.

Bikeshed Building

A phenomenon whereby many people will give an opinion on an uncomplicated topic, whilst a complex topic receives little or no discussion. See the FAQ for the origin of the term.

C

CD

Patrz: Carrier Detect

CHAP

Patrz: Challenge Handshake Authentication Protocol

CLIP

Patrz: Classical IP over ATM

COFF

Patrz: Common Object File Format

CPU

Patrz: Central Processing Unit

CTS

Patrz: Clear To Send

CVS

Patrz: Concurrent Versions System

Carrier Detect
(CD)

An RS232C signal indicating that a carrier has been detected.

Central Processing Unit
(CPU)

Also known as the processor. This is the brain of the computer where all calculations take place. There are a number of different architectures with different instruction sets. Among the more well-known are the Intel-x86 and derivatives, Sun SPARC, PowerPC, and Alpha.

Challenge Handshake Authentication Protocol
(CHAP)

A method of authenticating a user, based on a secret shared between client and server.

Classical IP over ATM
(CLIP)
Clear To Send
(CTS)

An RS232C signal giving the remote system permission to send data.

Patrz też: Request To Send.

Common Object File Format
(COFF)
Concurrent Versions System
(CVS)

A version control system, providing a method of working with and keeping track of many different revisions of files. CVS provides the ability to extract, merge and revert individual changes or sets of changes, and offers the ability to keep track of which changes were made, by who and for what reason.

D

DAC

Patrz: Discretionary Access Control

DDB

Patrz: Debugger

DES

Patrz: Data Encryption Standard

DHCP

Patrz: Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol

DNS

Patrz: Domain Name System

DSDT

Patrz: Differentiated System Description Table

DSR

Patrz: Data Set Ready

DTR

Patrz: Data Terminal Ready

DVMRP

Patrz: Distance-Vector Multicast Routing Protocol

Discretionary Access Control
(DAC)
Data Encryption Standard
(DES)

A method of encrypting information, traditionally used as the method of encryption for UNIX passwords and the crypt(3) function.

Data Set Ready
(DSR)

An RS232C signal sent from the modem to the computer or terminal indicating a readiness to send and receive data.

Patrz też: Data Terminal Ready.

Data Terminal Ready
(DTR)

An RS232C signal sent from the computer or terminal to the modem indicating a readiness to send and receive data.

Debugger
(DDB)

An interactive in-kernel facility for examining the status of a system, often used after a system has crashed to establish the events surrounding the failure.

Differentiated System Description Table
(DSDT)

An ACPI table, supplying basic configuration information about the base system.

Distance-Vector Multicast Routing Protocol
(DVMRP)
Domain Name System
(DNS)

The system that converts humanly readable hostnames (i.e., mail.example.net) to Internet addresses and vice versa.

Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol
(DHCP)

A protocol that dynamically assigns IP addresses to a computer (host) when it requests one from the server. The address assignment is called a “lease”.

E

ECOFF

Patrz: Extended COFF

ELF

Patrz: Executable and Linking Format

ESP

Patrz: Encapsulated Security Payload

Encapsulated Security Payload
(ESP)
Executable and Linking Format
(ELF)
Extended COFF
(ECOFF)

F

FADT

Patrz: Fixed ACPI Description Table

FAT

Patrz: File Allocation Table

FAT16

Patrz: File Allocation Table (16-bit)

FTP

Patrz: File Transfer Protocol

File Allocation Table
(FAT)
File Allocation Table (16-bit)
(FAT16)
File Transfer Protocol
(FTP)

A member of the family of high-level protocols implemented on top of TCP which can be used to transfer files over a TCP/IP network.

Fixed ACPI Description Table
(FADT)

G

GUI

Patrz: Graphical User Interface

Giant

The name of a mutual exclusion mechanism (a sleep mutex) that protects a large set of kernel resources. Although a simple locking mechanism was adequate in the days where a machine might have only a few dozen processes, one networking card, and certainly only one processor, in current times it is an unacceptable performance bottleneck. FreeBSD developers are actively working to replace it with locks that protect individual resources, which will allow a much greater degree of parallelism for both single-processor and multi-processor machines.

Graphical User Interface
(GUI)

A system where the user and computer interact with graphics.

H

HTML

Patrz: HyperText Markup Language

HUP

Patrz: HangUp

HangUp
(HUP)
HyperText Markup Language
(HTML)

The markup language used to create web pages.

I

I/O

Patrz: Input/Output

IASL

Patrz: Intel's ASL compiler

IMAP

Patrz: Internet Message Access Protocol

IP

Patrz: Internet Protocol

IPFW

Patrz: IP Firewall

IPP

Patrz: Internet Printing Protocol

IPv4

Patrz: IP Version 4

IPv6

Patrz: IP Version 6

ISP

Patrz: Internet Service Provider

IP Firewall
(IPFW)
IP Version 4
(IPv4)

The IP protocol version 4, which uses 32 bits for addressing. This version is still the most widely used, but it is slowly being replaced with IPv6.

Patrz też: IP Version 6.

IP Version 6
(IPv6)

The new IP protocol. Invented because the address space in IPv4 is running out. Uses 128 bits for addressing.

Input/Output
(I/O)
Intel's ASL compiler
(IASL)

Intel's compiler for converting ASL into AML.

Internet Message Access Protocol
(IMAP)

A protocol for accessing email messages on a mail server, characterised by the messages usually being kept on the server as opposed to being downloaded to the mail reader client.

Patrz też: Post Office Protocol Version 3.

Internet Printing Protocol
(IPP)
Internet Protocol
(IP)

The packet transmitting protocol that is the basic protocol on the Internet. Originally developed at the U.S. Department of Defense and an extremly important part of the TCP/IP stack. Without the Internet Protocol, the Internet would not have become what it is today. For more information, see RFC 791.

Internet Service Provider
(ISP)

A company that provides access to the Internet.

K

KAME

Japanese for “turtle”, the term KAME is used in computing circles to refer to the KAME Project, who work on an implementation of IPv6.

KDC

Patrz: Key Distribution Center

KLD

Patrz: Kernel ld(1)

KSE

Patrz: Kernel Scheduler Entities

KVA

Patrz: Kernel Virtual Address

Kbps

Patrz: Kilo Bits Per Second

Kernel ld(1)
(KLD)

A method of dynamically loading functionality into a FreeBSD kernel without rebooting the system.

Kernel Scheduler Entities
(KSE)

A kernel-supported threading system. See the project home page for further details.

Kernel Virtual Address
(KVA)
Key Distribution Center
(KDC)
Kilo Bits Per Second
(Kbps)

Used to measure bandwith (how much data can pass a given point at a specified amount of time). Alternates to the Kilo prefix include Mega, Giga, Tera, and so forth.

L

LAN

Patrz: Local Area Network

LOR

Patrz: Lock Order Reversal

LPD

Patrz: Line Printer Daemon

Line Printer Daemon
(LPD)
Local Area Network
(LAN)

A network used on a local area, e.g. office, home, or so forth.

Lock Order Reversal
(LOR)

The FreeBSD kernel uses a number of resource locks to arbitrate contention for those resources. A run-time lock diagnostic system found in FreeBSD-CURRENT kernels (but removed for releases), called witness(4), detects the potential for deadlocks due to locking errors. (witness(4) is actually slightly conservative, so it is possible to get false positives.) A true positive report indicates that “if you were unlucky, a deadlock would have happened here”.

True positive LORs tend to get fixed quickly, so check http://lists.FreeBSD.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-current and the LORs Seen page before posting to the mailing lists.

M

MAC

Patrz: Mandatory Access Control

MADT

Patrz: Multiple APIC Description Table

MFC

Patrz: Merge From Current

MFP4

Patrz: Merge From Perforce

MFS

Patrz: Merge From Stable

MIT

Patrz: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

MLS

Patrz: Multi-Level Security

MOTD

Patrz: Message Of The Day

MTA

Patrz: Mail Transfer Agent

MUA

Patrz: Mail User Agent

Mail Transfer Agent
(MTA)

An application used to transfer email. An MTA has traditionally been part of the BSD base system. Today Sendmail is included in the base system, but there are many other MTAs, such as postfix, qmail and Exim.

Mail User Agent
(MUA)

An application used by users to display and write email.

Mandatory Access Control
(MAC)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT)
Merge From Current
(MFC)

To merge functionality or a patch from the -CURRENT branch to another, most often -STABLE.

Merge From Perforce
(MFP4)

To merge functionality or a patch from the Perforce repository to the -CURRENT branch.

Patrz też: Perforce.

Merge From Stable
(MFS)

In the normal course of FreeBSD development, a change will be committed to the -CURRENT branch for testing before being merged to -STABLE. On rare occasions, a change will go into -STABLE first and then be merged to -CURRENT.

This term is also used when a patch is merged from -STABLE to a security branch.

Patrz też: Merge From Current.

Message Of The Day
(MOTD)

A message, usually shown on login, often used to distribute information to users of the system.

Multi-Level Security
(MLS)
Multiple APIC Description Table
(MADT)

N

NAT

Patrz: Network Address Translation

NDISulator

Patrz: Project Evil

NFS

Patrz: Network File System

NTFS

Patrz: New Technology File System

NTP

Patrz: Network Time Protocol

Network Address Translation
(NAT)

A technique where IP packets are rewritten on the way through a gateway, enabling many machines behind the gateway to effectively share a single IP address.

Network File System
(NFS)
New Technology File System
(NTFS)

A filesystem developed by Microsoft and available in its “New Technology” operating systems, such as Windows® 2000, Windows NT® and Windows XP.

Network Time Protocol
(NTP)

A means of synchronizing clocks over a network.

O

OBE

Patrz: Overtaken By Events

ODMR

Patrz: On-Demand Mail Relay

OS

Patrz: Operating System

On-Demand Mail Relay
(ODMR)
Operating System
(OS)

A set of programs, libraries and tools that provide access to the hardware resources of a computer. Operating systems range today from simplistic designs that support only one program running at a time, accessing only one device to fully multi-user, multi-tasking and multi-process systems that can serve thousands of users simultaneously, each of them running dozens of different applications.

Overtaken By Events
(OBE)

Indicates a suggested change (such as a Problem Report or a feature request) which is no longer relevant or applicable due to such things as later changes to FreeBSD, changes in networking standards, the affected hardware having since become obsolete, and so forth.

P

p4

Patrz: Perforce

PAE

Patrz: Physical Address Extensions

PAM

Patrz: Pluggable Authentication Modules

PAP

Patrz: Password Authentication Protocol

PC

Patrz: Personal Computer

PCNSFD

Patrz: Personal Computer Network File System Daemon

PDF

Patrz: Portable Document Format

PID

Patrz: Process ID

POLA

Patrz: Principle Of Least Astonishment

POP

Patrz: Post Office Protocol

POP3

Patrz: Post Office Protocol Version 3

PPD

Patrz: PostScript Printer Description

PPP

Patrz: Point-to-Point Protocol

PPPoA

Patrz: PPP over ATM

PPPoE

Patrz: PPP over Ethernet

PPP over ATM
(PPPoA)
PPP over Ethernet
(PPPoE)
PR

Patrz: Problem Report

PXE

Patrz: Preboot eXecution Environment

Password Authentication Protocol
(PAP)
Perforce

A source code control product made by Perforce Software which is more advanced than CVS. Although not open source, its use is free of charge to open-source projects such as FreeBSD.

Some FreeBSD developers use a Perforce repository as a staging area for code that is considered too experimental for the -CURRENT branch.

Personal Computer
(PC)
Personal Computer Network File System Daemon
(PCNFSD)
Physical Address Extensions
(PAE)

A method of enabling access to up to 64 GB of RAM on systems which only physically have a 32-bit wide address space (and would therefore be limited to 4 GB without PAE).

Pluggable Authentication Modules
(PAM)
Point-to-Point Protocol
(PPP)
Pointy Hat

A mythical piece of headgear, much like a dunce cap, awarded to any FreeBSD committer who breaks the build, makes revision numbers go backwards, or creates any other kind of havoc in the source base. Any committer worth his or her salt will soon accumulate a large collection. The usage is (almost always?) humorous.

Portable Document Format
(PDF)
Post Office Protocol
(POP)

Patrz też: Post Office Protocol Version 3.

Post Office Protocol Version 3
(POP3)

A protocol for accessing email messages on a mail server, characterised by the messages usually being downloaded from the server to the client, as opposed to remaining on the server.

Patrz też: Internet Message Access Protocol.

PostScript Printer Description
(PPD)
Preboot eXecution Environment
(PXE)
Principle Of Least Astonishment
(POLA)

As FreeBSD evolves, changes visible to the user should be kept as unsurprising as possible. For example, arbitrarily rearranging system startup variables in /etc/defaults/rc.conf violates POLA. Developers consider POLA when contemplating user-visible system changes.

Problem Report
(PR)

A description of some kind of problem that has been found in either the FreeBSD source or documentation. See Writing FreeBSD Problem Reports.

Process ID
(PID)

A number, unique to a particular process on a system, which identifies it and allows actions to be taken against it.

Project Evil

The working title for the NDISulator, written by Bill Paul, who named it referring to how awful it is (from a philosophical standpoint) to need to have something like this in the first place. The NDISulator is a special compatibility module to allow Microsoft Windows™ NDIS miniport network drivers to be used with FreeBSD/i386. This is usually the only way to use cards where the driver is closed-source. See src/sys/compat/ndis/subr_ndis.c.

R

RA

Patrz: Router Advertisement

RAID

Patrz: Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks

RAM

Patrz: Random Access Memory

RD

Patrz: Received Data

RFC

Patrz: Request For Comments

RISC

Patrz: Reduced Instruction Set Computer

RPC

Patrz: Remote Procedure Call

RS232C

Patrz: Recommended Standard 232C

RTS

Patrz: Request To Send

Random Access Memory
(RAM)
Received Data
(RD)

An RS232C pin or wire that data is recieved on.

Patrz też: Transmitted Data.

Recommended Standard 232C
(RS232C)

A standard for communications between serial devices.

Reduced Instruction Set Computer
(RISC)

An approach to processor design where the operations the hardware can perform are simplified but made as general purpose as possible. This can lead to lower power consumption, fewer transistors and in some cases, better performance and increased code density. Examples of RISC processors include the Alpha, Sparc®, ARM® and PowerPC®.

Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks
(RAID)
Remote Procedure Call
(RPC)
repocopy

Patrz: Repository Copy

Repository Copy

A direct copying of files within the CVS repository.

Without a repocopy, if a file needed to be copied or moved to another place in the repository, the committer would run cvs add to put the file in its new location, and then cvs rm on the old file if the old copy was being removed.

The disadvantage of this method is that the history (i.e. the entries in the CVS logs) of the file would not be copied to the new location. As the FreeBSD Project considers this history very useful, a repository copy is often used instead. This is a process where one of the repository meisters will copy the files directly within the repository, rather than using the cvs(1) program.

Request For Comments
(RFC)

A set of documents defining Internet standards, protocols, and so forth. See www.rfc-editor.org.

Also used as a general term when someone has a suggested change and wants feedback.

Request To Send
(RTS)

An RS232C signal requesting that the remote system commences transmission of data.

Patrz też: Clear To Send.

Router Advertisement
(RA)

S

SCI

Patrz: System Control Interrupt

SCSI

Patrz: Small Computer System Interface

SG

Patrz: Signal Ground

SMB

Patrz: Server Message Block

SMP

Patrz: Symmetric MultiProcessor

SMTP

Patrz: Simple Mail Transfer Protocol

SMTP AUTH

Patrz: SMTP Authentication

SSH

Patrz: Secure Shell

STR

Patrz: Suspend To RAM

SVN

Patrz: Subversion

SMTP Authentication
(SMTP AUTH)
Server Message Block
(SMB)
Signal Ground
(SG)

An RS232 pin or wire that is the ground reference for the signal.

Simple Mail Transfer Protocol
(SMTP)
Secure Shell
(SSH)
Small Computer System Interface
(SCSI)
Subversion
(SVN)

Subversion is a version control system, similar to CVS, but with an expanded feature list.

Patrz też: Concurrent Versions System.

Suspend To RAM
(STR)
Symmetric MultiProcessor
(SMP)
System Control Interrupt
(SCI)

T

TCP

Patrz: Transmission Control Protocol

TCP/IP

Patrz: Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol

TD

Patrz: Transmitted Data

TFTP

Patrz: Trivial FTP

TGT

Patrz: Ticket-Granting Ticket

TSC

Patrz: Time Stamp Counter

Ticket-Granting Ticket
(TGT)
Time Stamp Counter
(TSC)

A profiling counter internal to modern Pentium® processors that counts core frequency clock ticks.

Transmission Control Protocol
(TCP)

A protocol that sits on top of (e.g.) the IP protocol and guarantees that packets are delivered in a reliable, ordered, fashion.

Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol
(TCP/IP)

The term for the combination of the TCP protocol running over the IP protocol. Much of the Internet runs over TCP/IP.

Transmitted Data
(TD)

An RS232C pin or wire that data is transmitted on.

Patrz też: Received Data.

Trivial FTP
(TFTP)

U

UDP

Patrz: User Datagram Protocol

UFS1

Patrz: Unix File System Version 1

UFS2

Patrz: Unix File System Version 2

UID

Patrz: User ID

URL

Patrz: Uniform Resource Locator

USB

Patrz: Universal Serial Bus

Uniform Resource Locator
(URL)

A method of locating a resource, such as a document on the Internet and a means to identify that resource.

Unix File System Version 1
(UFS1)

The original UNIX file system, sometimes called the Berkeley Fast File System.

Unix File System Version 2
(UFS2)

An extension to UFS1, introduced in FreeBSD 5-CURRENT. UFS2 adds 64 bit block pointers (breaking the 1T barrier), support for extended file storage and other features.

Universal Serial Bus
(USB)

A hardware standard used to connect a wide variety of computer peripherals to a universal interface.

User ID
(UID)

A unique number assigned to each user of a computer, by which the resources and permissions assigned to that user can be identified.

User Datagram Protocol
(UDP)

A simple, unreliable datagram protocol which is used for exchanging data on a TCP/IP network. UDP does not provide error checking and correction like TCP.

V

VPN

Patrz: Virtual Private Network

Virtual Private Network
(VPN)

A method of using a public telecommunication such as the Internet, to provide remote access to a localized network, such as a corporate LAN.

Ten i inne dokumenty można pobrać z ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/doc/.

W przypadku pytań o FreeBSD prosimy przeczytać dostępną dokumentację przed kontaktem z <questions@FreeBSD.org>.
W sprawie zapytań o tę dokumentację prosimy o kontakt z <doc@FreeBSD.org>.