Glossary
Domain
consists of a set of network addresses. The domain is organised in levels. The top level identifies geographic or purpose commonality (e.g. the country that the domain covers or category such as commercial). The second level identifies a unique place within the top level domain.
Gateway
A gateway is a network point that acts as an entrance to another network. On the Internet in terms of routing the network consists of gateway nodes and host nodes. The computers of network users and the computers that serve content (web pages) are host nodes. The CPU's that control traffic within your company's network or at your local ISP are gateway nodes..
IP Packets
An IP Packet is shown in the figure below. Some of the fields have specialised functions; others are the same as will be found in any switching network. Note that, as with any connectionless network service, the full source and destination addresses must be given in each packet.
Routing
On the internet, a router is a device or program, that decides the next network point to forward a packet. The router maintains a table of the available routes and their conditions and uses this information along with distance and cost information to determine the best route for a given packet..
SLIP or PPP
These are drivers which allow TCP/IP to work over a serial line. They handle the modem dialling and hang up aswell as providing a script which you use to automate the login procedure..
TCP/IP Program
regardless of computer type you'll need TCP/IP software which provides the transport mechanism of data over the net. You must have TCP/IP software unless you're running a terminal account, without it you'll have no full access to the Internet..
