Knowledgebase

Glossary from M to R

This is a glossary of terms and phrases related to web hosting, web applications and the Internet.

This part of the glossary is for terms that start with the letters from M to R. The other parts are:

MAC address (Media Access Control address) - a unique serial number of a network interface controller (LAN adapter) with which it's identified on a network. This is the physical address with which the computer is identified on a network. It's used by network technologies such as Ethernet and Wi-Fi.

Typically the MAC-48 format is used, which means that the MAC address consists of 48 bits. It's represented with 12 symbols, and the used symbols are the numbers from 0 to 9 and the letters from A to F. Usually the address is displayed with the symbols grouped into six groups of two symbols separated either with hyphens (e.g. 15-72-91-46-2e-cd) or colons (15:72:91:46:2e:cd). Sometimes the address may be shown with three groups of four symbols (1572-9146-2ecd).

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Magento - a popular web application for building and managing online stores. The community edition is open-source and free.

HostKnox servers provide an ideal environment for Magento. You can check out our Magento hosting services. You can find more information on how to install and manage Magento in our Magento tutorials and in the Magento articles in our knowledge base.

Maildir - a format for storing emails. It's one of the most widely used email formats. With maildir each email is stored in its own file.

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Malware (stands for malicious software) - software used by abusers for various malicious purposes: to gain access to a user's computer, spy on the user, gather information, disrupt the functions of the computer, etc.

There are different ways that malware can get to the user's computer; for example, it can happen when the user visits a malicious site, or when the user opens an infected email attachment; it can be some script hidden in a file or an application that the user has downloaded, etc. There are different types of malware, depending on the purpose for which they are designed: trojan horses, viruses, worms, etc.

Malware mainly targets users of any of the versions of the Microsoft Windows operating systems and also of Android (an OS for mobile devices), especially when it comes to viruses and worms. Users of Unix-like operating systems like Linux are practically almost unaffected.

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MAN (Metropolitan Area Network) - a computer network that spreads over an area bigger than a local area network (LAN) and smaller than a wide area network (WAN) like the Internet. It usually covers parts of a city or a whole city. A MAN links local area networks and gives them access to the Internet.

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mbox - refers to a file format for storing email messages. To be more precise it's a set of similar file formats. With mbox the email messages are stored in a single file.

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MD5 - an algorithm for encrypting data. It's used by applications when data has to be protected. For example, web applications use MD5 to encrypt passwords that are stored in the database of the site.

It can also be used to verify that a file hasn't been modified. For example, when you download a file from the Internet, the site from which you download it may provide an MD5 hash value for the file (this depends on the site). After you download the file you can check it's MD5 hash value and make sure that it's the same; this means that the file hasn't been modified while downloading it. For information on how to do this check out the article on how to perform MD5 hash checks (for Windows users).

MediaWiki - a web-application for creating wiki websites. It's open source and free. Originally, it was created for the needs of the Wikipedia website, but now it's used by many websites.

HostKnox provides hosting for MediaWiki powered websites.

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Meta description - see Meta elements

Meta elements - these are HTML tags in the code of a web page that give some basic information about the page and its content. To be more precise, these tags are put in HTML documents, and HTML is the standard markup language for creating web pages. There are different meta elements (e.g. meta description, meta keywords, etc.) that can be used to provide a description of the page, keywords related to the page, and other data.

Among other things, meta elements are used for search engine optimization. So if a page has meta keywords, description and other elements specified, this may help for it to be better ranked on result pages displayed by search engines (e.g. Google). In practice, however, meta elements have little weight when it comes to page ranking.

Some of the information provided by meta tags may be shown on result pages displayed by search engines. For example, if there's a meta description, that description may be shown on search result pages.

If you use a web application (e.g. WordPress, Joomla, etc.) for building and managing your site, most of them usually have options for adding meta data, such as a description and keywords, to the pages that you add to the site.

Meta tags - see Meta elements

MIME (stands for Multi-Purpose Internet Mail Extensions) - this is an extension of the email protocol SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol). While SMTP is used to transfer text email messages, with the help of MIME emails can be used to transfer images, video, audio and other files.

mod_rewrite - an Apache module that's used for redirecting content, for URL remapping, restricting access to content, and for other similar things. Users can do these things by putting directives in .htaccess files on the hosting account. All HostKnox servers have mod_rewrite installed.

For more general information on mod_rewrite and the directives that can be used with it check out our tutorial on mod_rewrite directives. You can also find out various tricks that you can perform with mod_rewrite directives by checking out our articles in the mod_rewrite section of our knowledge base.

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Module - see Add-on

MSSQL (Microsoft SQL Server) - a database management system created by Microsoft. HostKnox doesn't support MSSQL. We have MySQL installed on our servers.

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MyISAM - a database engine for the MySQL database management system (DBMS). It is the default engine for versions older than 5.5. For versions 5.5 and newer the default engine is InnoDB.

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MySQL - one of the most popular and widely used database management systems. It's an open-source application. All HostKnox servers use MySQL.

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Nameserver - a domain name has nameservers assigned to it. These nameservers store the DNS records of the domain name and of other domain names, and in turn these records provide information such as the IP address that corresponds to a domain name. In fact, this is their main function, to translate domain names into IP addresses. The nameservers of a domain name can be specified and changed from the domain name registrar with which the domain is registered.

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nano - a text editor for Unix-like operating systems (such as Linux). It's a free program that's pretty much a clone of the text editor Pico, though it provides some additional functions. HostKnox servers have nano installed and users can edit with it files directly on the server. This can be done by connecting to the hosting account via SSH. Then nano can be started and used to edit files.

For more information on how to use it check the article on how to edit files via SSH. In the SSH section of our knowledgebase you'll find more information about how to do tasks via SSH, including how to connect to your account via SSH.

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NIC (Network Interface Controller) - also commonly called network adapter or LAN adapter. This is a hardware device in a computer that connects that computer to a network. It's used by technologies such as Ethernet to connect the computer to other computers in a local area network (LAN), and to wider networks like the Internet.

The network controller is usually built into the motherboard of the computer. Each network controller has a serial number called a MAC address with which it's identified in the network.

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Open source - refers to computer applications and programs for which the code is available to anybody, and consequently anybody can modify them. This also means that such applications can be downloaded and used freely without any fees.

OpenVPN - an open-source application used for establishing a virtual private network.

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Oracle - a database management system developed by Oracle Corporation. HostKnox servers don't have Oracle installed. We use MySQL.

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OS (Operating System) - the basic software component installed on a computer. The operating system provides an interface through which users can perform tasks on the computer. In order for other applications to be used on the computer there should be an OS installed. It's, so to say, the link between the software applications and the computer hardware. An operating system contains different components; the basic one that's at the core is called the kernel. Examples of operating systems are Microsoft Windows, Linux, Android (for cell phones and mobile devices).

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OSI model (stands for Open Systems Interconnection model) - a model used for describing the functions and the way data is exchanged in a network. The model is divided into seven layers: physical, data link, network, transport, session, presentation, application. It can be applied to the Internet and to other networks. When it comes to the Internet the model that is predominantly used to specify and standardize the network functions is TCP/IP (Internet protocol suite).

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P2P (stands for peer-to-peer) - a network model in which the connected users/peers share resources directly between each other. Unlike the client-server model where the server provides the resources for the clients, in the peer-to-peer model there's no intermediary and the user both provides their resources and uses those of the other peers. This model is used, for example, by various applications for file sharing over the Internet.

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Path - when used in reference to a hosting account, a path specifies the location of a file or a folder on the account. The directories in the path a separated with a forward slash (/). Each file on a site has its corresponding path on the account on which it's hosted. The path is absolute when the full path is specified (from the root directory on the account to the particular file). The path is referred to as relative when the path to the file is specified in terms of the current working directory. Each hosting provider has their own path structure used on hosting accounts.

As an example we'll use the path structure of HostKnox hosting accounts. Let's say, for example, that you open the URL yourdomain.com/index.php. The absolute path to the index.php file on the account will be /home/username/public_html/index.php (username is replaced with the actual username). The relative path will be public_html/index.php.

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PEAR (stands for PHP Extension and Application Repository) - a library of PHP code for various frequently performed functions. There are different PEAR packages that can be installed on servers. Most of the standard PEAR packages are installed on the HostKnox servers.

Perl (stands for Practical Extraction and Report Language) - a popular scripting language. HostKnox servers support Perl.

Permissions - see File permissions

Phishing - refers to methods for gathering personal and sensitive information by disguising as a known and trusted source. This is done usually with a website or an email address made to look exactly as the original. The phisher can, for example, make a website that looks almost identical to a known and trusted website. When users visit it they can disclose sensitive information (e.g. login credentials, credit card information, etc.) without realizing that this is not the original site.

Another technique that phishers use is to send emails that look like they are from a trusted organization or a person. This may be used to trick the user to share information, or the email may contain a link that appears to be to a know website, but in fact it may lead to another website that looks like the original, or it may be a website designed to infect the user's computer with malicious software. Such a link in an email may look like it leads to a known URL (e.g. example.com), but in fact it may lead to a completely different URL (another_site.com).

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PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor, originally it stood for Personal Home Page) - one of the most popular and widely used server-side scripting languages for the creation of web pages and sites. Since it's a server-side language, its code is executed on the server and the result is sent to the web-browser of the client.

phpBB - a popular open source web application for creating and managing forums.

We provide phpBB hosting services, and the HostKnox servers provide an ideal environment for running phpBB. For more information on how to install and manage phpBB check out our phpBB3 tutorials and the phpBB articles in our knowledge base.

phpMyAdmin - an open source application for managing MySQL databases. This is done through a web-browser. You can use phpMyAdmin to edit and delete database tables and do all sort of things.

All HostKnox servers have phpMyAdmin installed. HostKnox customers can access it either by using the link in the Pixie control panel, or by directly opening the URL address of phpMyAdmin on the server on which the hosting account is located. For more information check out the article on how to access phpMyAdmin.

Pico (Pine composer) - a text editor. It can be used on Unix and Unix-like (e.g. Linux) operating systems. When it comes to web hosting, it's frequently used for editing files directly on the hosting account. This can be done via SSH; the editor is used through a command-line interface. Once the user has connected to the hosting account via SSH, they can start Pico. Another text editor that's almost the same is called nano. They are simpler to use than other text editors that can be used via SSH, such as Vim.

HostKnox servers have pico/nano installed. For more information on how to edit files with them check out the article on how to edit files via SSH. In the SSH section of our knowledgebase you'll also find information on how to connect to your account via SSH and perform various other tasks.

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Ping - a network tool that's used for testing the connection to a host on the Internet. You can use it to test whether a server (or a website hosted on that server) can be reached from your local computer. Ping does this by sending packets to the server and waiting for a response. It also measures the time it takes for that response (that's the total time it takes for the packets to be sent to the destination and be received back).

The tool can be used through a command-line program by executing the command ping plus the name of the site or the IP address of the destination (e.g. ping hostknox.com). Windows users can do this with the command-line program cmd that comes prepackaged with the operating system.

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Pixel - the smallest element that makes up digital images. You can think of pixels as very small dots or squares that are the building blocks of the image. If the image is zoomed in, these squares become discernible. A single pixel can store one or more colors depending on the color depth of the image.

The number of pixels indicate the quality of the picture. The more pixels, the better the quality of the image and the closer it is to the original. This is usually referred to as the resolution of the image. It's typically expressed with two numbers: e.g. 1680 x 1050 pixels. The first number shows the number of pixels per horizontal line and the second per vertical. Multiplying the two numbers will give the total number of pixels. The number of pixels that a computer can display depends on its video card and monitor.

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Pixie control panel - this is the control panel that HostKnox customers can use to manage their hosting accounts. It's a web application that's accessed through a web-browser. It's our own software and so we constantly improve and expand it. For information on how to use its various features check out our Pixie control panel tutorial.

Plesk (also called Parallels Plesk Panel) - a hosting account control panel application. It's used for managing hosting accounts through a web browser.

HostKnox doesn't use the Plesk software package. We have our own control panel application called Pixie control panel.

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Plugin - see Add-on

PNG (stands for Portable Network Graphics) - a popular file format for storing digital images. Images stored with the PNG format are compressed with lossless data compression which means that the size of the files is reduced without reducing the visual quality. The PNG format can support a color depth of up to 64 bits per pixel.

As compared to the other most popular image format JPEG, PNG images have larger file size but since they use a lossless data compression their quality is a bit better. This difference in quality, however, is usually not really visible, especially when it comes to photos, and JPEG images are preferred for their smaller file size.

PNG images have the file extension .png (e.g. example_image.png).

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POP (stands for Post Office Protocol) - an Internet protocol that's used by email clients for downloading email messages from the server. The messages are removed from the server and downloaded to the local computer on which the email client runs. The other protocol that can be used is IMAP; with it the messages are accessed and managed directly on the server.

POP connects to the server through port 110. If the connection is encrypted (over SSL/TLS), then the port number that's used is 995. The choice of the protocol and the port number is configured from the settings of the email client. For more information check out our tutorials on configuring different email clients. There you'll also find some more useful information related to managing emails. You can also check out the articles related to managing emails in our knowledge base.

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Port (Internet port) - an endpoint on a server used by the different protocols in the Internet protocol suite to connect to it. Each port has a number and typically a specific port number is used by a particular protocol. For example, HTTP uses port 80, FTP uses port 21, etc.

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PrestaShop - a popular web application for creating and managing online stores. It's open source and free.

HostKnox provides PrestaShop hosting services. Our servers provide an ideal environment for running PrestaShop. For more information on how to install and manage PrestaShop check out our PrestaShop tutorials, and the PrestaShop articles in our knowledge base.

Proprietary software - software for which customers have to pay so that they are allowed to install and use it. Most often its code is not available and cannot be modified by users. There are usually other restrictions in terms of distribution and sharing. It's also called closed-source software. Other types of software in terms of license agreements are, for example, freeware and open-source software.

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Protocol - when used in reference to the Internet, a protocol is a set of rules for the transfer of data between the computers in the network. The two principal protocols are IP (Internet Protocol) and TCP (Transmission Control Protocol), but there are many other protocols (e.g. HTTP, FTP, SMTP, IMAP, TLS/SSL, etc.). The two basic protocols are often used to refer to the whole Internet protocol suite; it's usually called just TCP/IP.

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Proxy server - a server through which the requests of a client (e.g. local computer) pass before going to the destination server that holds the requested resources. It's an intermediary server.

There are different types of proxies that are used for various purposes. For example, proxy servers called gateways only transfer requests without modifying them. There are proxies that are used for filtering content before displaying it to the client (if the content is not denied); such proxies are used, for instance, by schools and colleges for blocking inappropriate content. Proxies are also very often used by clients to stay anonymous. In such cases the client's request goes to the proxy server which forwards the request to the server that holds the resource (e.g. website) and it hides the IP address of the client. Proxy servers can also be used for caching and for improving the security of other servers.

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PuTTY - an application that's primarily used for connecting to a hosting account via SSH. It can be used to connect to an account via other protocols, but it's usually used to access accounts via SSH. Once the account is accessed it can be used to execute commands and perform various actions on the account. The application has a command-line interface and is intended mainly for users who have a Windows operating system installed on their local computer.

PuTTY actually consists of several components. The main one is the SSH client application. There are also clients for transferring files between the local computer and the server (via SCP and SFTP).

For detailed information on how to connect to your hosting account using PuTTY check out our tutorial on how to connect to your hosting account via SSH using PuTTY. You may also find useful the SSH section in our knowledgebase.

Python - a popular programming language. Python is supported on HostKnox servers.

Raster graphics - a term used to refer to a digital image that consists of pixels. Such images are also called just rasters or bitmaps. Raster images have a resolution (number of pixels) and a color depth (number of bits per pixel). There are different file formats that are used for saving and storing raster graphics: e.g. JPEG, PNG, GIF, etc.

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Regular expression - a string of characters (letters, numbers and other symbols) that's used to describe and search for a string of text. A regular expression is a pattern that can match many different words, phrases or any string in an actual text (or code), provided that the conditions set by the regular expression are met. For example, the regular expression [a-zA-z] will match any lowercase letter from a to z and any uppercase letter from A to Z.

So regular expressions are used primarily for finding text or code strings in files. They are used by different programming languages, in Apache server directives, or just for finding something in a file.

For more information on regular expressions check out our detailed tutorial on regular expressions and how to use them or the shorter article on regular expressions.

Remote - when used in relation to the Internet and networks in general, remote refers to anything (e.g. programs, scripts, etc.) that runs on other computers on the network, meaning not on the local computer of the user.

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Resolution - a term used to describe digital images. It indicates the number of pixels that the image contains. It's also used to describe how many pixels a monitor can display. Typically it's expressed with two numbers. The first one for the horizontal dimension of the image and the second one for the vertical (width x height). For example, 1920 x 1080 means that a single horizontal line/row contains 1920 pixels and a vertical line/column contains 1080 pixels. The total number of pixels can be calculated by multiplying the two numbers. The greater the number, the better the quality of the image. The image resolution can also be expressed with pixels per inch (ppi).

Another quality of digital images with which they are described is in terms of color depth; this is the number of colors per pixel.

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RFC (Request for Comments) - this is the name used for a document published by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). RFCs contain information about different Internet specifications, and mostly about the behavior and functions of network protocols. Each RFC has a number with which it's identified.

Not all RFCs are with accepted standards. Some are proposals for standards; others can be historical/obsolete, experimental, etc. Every RFC has a status which indicates this. RFCs are publicly available on the Internet.

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Robots.txt file - a file on your hosting account with directives that instruct web crawlers (also called web spiders and web robots) about the parts of the website that can be accessed and indexed by the crawlers. Note that these directives are actually just recommendations that may not be followed by the particular crawler. There are malicious web robots that don't follow the instructions in the robots.txt file.

Rootkit - hidden software that's itself used to hide other programs or activities on the computer on which the rootkit is installed. Although sometimes a rootkit is intentionally installed by the user for some useful purposes, usually rootkits are malicious software installed without the knowledge of the user. This is typically done through the Internet by using some vulnerability on the targeted computer. The rootkit is then used to conceal other malicious programs (e.g. Trojan horses, viruses, worms) which are most often used to gain access to the computer, and then steal or corrupt information, use the computer to send spam, etc.

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Roundcube - a free and open-source webmail client. Roundcube can be used to manage and send emails with a web-browser.

All HostKnox servers have Roundcube installed, so HostKnox customers who want to manage their mail with a web-browser can do that with Roundcube. This, of course, refers to email addresses that bear a domain name that's hosted by HostKnox. HostKnox customers can access Roundcube either by using the link in the Email section of the Pixie control panel, or by directly using its URL address. For more information check out the tutorial on how to access your email with a web-browser.

Round-trip time - the total time it takes for data to be sent from the source to the destination and back to the source. When it comes to computer networks and the Internet, this is, for example, the time it takes for data to be transferred from a local computer to a server and back to the local computer. This time can be measured with the ping command executed with a command-line interpreter (e.g. cmd in Windows).

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Router - a network device that's used for connecting networks and transferring information between them. Most frequently routers are used to connect a local computer(s) to an Internet service provider (ISP), and respectively to the Internet.

RSS (stands for Rich Site Summary, also called Really Simple Syndication) - a technology used to publish information from websites that's updated often (e.g. news, blog entries, etc.). Many websites offer users subscriptions to RSS feeds. In this way the user can check what information is updated on the site without the need to visit the site. This is especially useful if the user wants to check more quickly the updated information from many sites. This is done either from the web-browser or with an application called an RSS reader.

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