Jnos related vocabulary
Here are some of the abbreviations and terminology used throughout this manual.
AREA is the set of all BBS data available to a user, also called “user area”. Area name is normally the same as a user-id or it is created by the administrator for public data. When area name is used in the context of a parameter, it is shown as <area>.
CALLSIGN is the licenced amateur call sign assigned by the regulating agency in the country of residence for the owner. For the purposes of this wiki when an example is provided the call of the owner may be set to "J0NOS" and a remote site to "J1NOS", "J2NOS", and so forth. These calls are thought to be non-existant and use of these calls on the air can lead to regulatory diciplineary action - so don't use any example text without editing in your own call.
DNS is a TCP/IP network service designed to resolve names into IP numbers for communication purposes.
FRAME refers to a block of data defined by AX.25 protocol. A packet may be constructed from multiple frames.
HOST is the computer jnos is executed on, the word is sometimes used to refer to the jnos application itself.
HOSTNAME is the name of a computer, or TCP/IP URL, or packet node. For examples in this document a reference to the owner's host is shown as "myjnos", and another remote system is shown as "remotejnos".
INTERNET is a worldwide adhoc computer network. It has thousands of computers at schools, companies, and amateur packet radio systems connected to it.
MTU [Maximum Transmission Unit] is the maximum data size in one packet. Most often the data referred to by MTU is the transported data, i.e. data frame in a network connection. With tcp/ip, the size of the tcp/ip frame inside the ax.25 packet is the MTU; with net/rom, the size of the data inside the netrom packet is the MTU.
NODE and MAILBOX are terms used interchangeably for the user interface when connected to the system.
NRS [Net/Rom Serial protocol] is what TNCs with Net/Rom or TheNet eproms talk on the serial port.
PACKET is used to refer to the mode or protocol in a generic sense. It is also used to refer to the block of data transmitted by the radio link, again generically.
PACLEN [packet length] is most often used to refer to data size in a link packet. The data in an ax.25 packet can be up to paclen bytes.
PORT or INTERFACE means the physical connection to a radio or other system (i.e., radio port or serial interface). These two terms are used interchangeably.
PPP [point-to-point protocol] is an alternative to SLIP, that has the advantage of automatically configuring IP addresses, compression, and MTU.
RFCs [Requests For Comment] are standard papers used on Internet to discuss and propose new networking protocols and other related topics.
RSPF [Radio Shortest Path First] is a tcp/ip routing protocol especially targeted at radio environments.
RTT [Round Trip Time] indicates the time needed for data to be sent and acknowledged.
SLIP [Serial Line IP] is a way to send IP frames over a serial port without using ax.25 or ethernet to carry the data. You can use SLIP to connect to PCs or Unix systems also running SLIP, and interchange tcp/ip data.
SYSOP The sysop is sometimes called "owner" or even "administrator" on this site.
<CTRL-X> [special character] means to first hold down the <CTRL> key and then press the <x> key simultaneously. It is a technique similar to capitalization of letters in text except it does not use the <SHIFT> key. The terminal device must support the ascii coding created by the <CTRL> and <ALT> key strokes. There are several (other than "x") special control characters supported and they are shown as their utility is described.