7. Glossary#

alias#

Pseudonym, substitute name. Aliases allow multiple names to be given to the same entity. It is a concept frequently used in computer science. For example, we speak of an alias when we point several email addresses to the same inbox, or when we define a new name for a command. — Wiktionary

API#

Application Programming Interface, an interface intended to be used not by a human being but by a software. It is generally composed of a set of functions that a software can use remotely. — Wikipedia

CLI#

Command Line Interface, an interface in command line, based on a textual display. It is used through a terminal window. The CLI is very interesting because it can be used by humans as well as by software. — Wikipedia

client#

Piece of software that accesses a service made available by a server. It usually has a graphical interface, intended to be used directly by a human. — Wikipedia

computer network#

Set of computers linked together in order for them to exchange data. — Wikipedia

Debian#

Système d’exploitation communautaire basé sur Linux, composé presque exclusivement de logiciels libres et respectant la norme POSIX. — Wikipedia, Site Web

See also

The journal article: Migration de Ubuntu à Debian (Phase 1) (in French)

domain name#

Internet domain identifier, easy for a human to read and remember.

For example: club1.fr, impots.gouv.fr, and fr are domain names.

In the DNS, a domain allows to associate information with a name. Among this information, the most important is the IP address of the computer associated with this domain. A domain name is therefore often used as an alias for an IP address.

In addition to this information, a domain can also have subdomains. — Wikipedia

dynamic website#

Web site whose display may vary “from itself”, hence the name “dynamic” (distinguishing it from a static website). It contains code that will be “executed” to generate HTML. — Wikipedia

free software#

Refers to software that respects the freedom of users. In particular, users have the freedom to run, copy, study, modify and improve these software, and especially to reshare, modified or not. — Wikipedia

GitHub#

Web service providing hosting for software development and version control using Git.

Warning

Unlike most of the projects that can be found there, Github is neither free, nor open source and belongs to Microsoft.

Wikipedia

group#

Dans un système POSIX, les groupes servent à rassembler des utilisateurs afin de leur attribuer des droits communs. Un utilisateur appartient à un ou plusieurs groupes.

Tip

It is possible to find out who is a member of a group on the server from an SSH access with the following command:

members GROUP

By replacing GROUP with the desired group. Example: members sudo or members home.

Wikipedia

hidden file#
hidden folder#

Dans la plupart des systèmes d’exploitation, il est possible de cacher des fichiers ou des dossiers. Cela sert souvent à masquer des paramètres peu utiles au quotidien. Dans un système POSIX, les fichiers cachés commencent par un point ..

In file explorers they may be hidden by default. It is possible to activate their display if necessary, often with the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + H. — Wikipedia

HTML#

(Hypertext Markup Language) Markup language designed to represent Web pages. — Wikipedia, MDN web docs

instance#

Copy of software or a computer object having its own existence and state.

For example, we speak of an instance each time a software is executed with different data. On the CLUB1 server, there are notably several instances of PHP: at least one for each member. — Wiktionary

Internet#

Publicly accessible global computer network. The Internet is actually the interconnection of a set of networks around the world. As the name suggests, “inter” “net” = “between networks”. It is therefore a “network of networks”. — Wikipedia

IP address#

Identification number of a computer connected to a computer network.

The IP protocol (originally created for Internet) is used to transport data between a source computer and its destination. For this, it needs IP addresses in order to identify these two computers.

Currently, two versions of IP addresses are used: Version 4 which is written as numbers separated by periods (e.g. 87.91.4.64 for the CLUB1 server). And version 6 which uses much larger numbers and is written in hexadecimal (e.g. 2001:861:38c4:18a0::3 for the CLUB1 server). — Wikipedia

Linux#

Noyau de système d’exploitation POSIX libre. Le noyau est le cœur du système, il fait l’interface entre les logiciels utilisateurs et le matériel.

By extention, Linux often refers to any operating system based on this kernel. — Wikipedia

log#

Originally refers to the logbook of a ship. In computing it is a journal containing a history of events, usually in the form of a plain text file. — Wikipedia

Markdown#

Lightweight markup language for creating formatted text. Documents written in Markdown are usually intended to be converted to HTML, in order to make it a Web page. Its main advantage over HTML is its sleek syntax, which makes it more pleasant to read and write for a human. — Wikipedia

PHP#

(PHP Hypertext Preprocessor) High-level programming language, primarily used to produce Web pages dynamically by generating HTML code. Its acronym originally stood for “Personal Home Page” and it is precisely the language that CLUB1 puts forward for the creation of dynamic website. — Wikipedia

POSIX#

(Portable Operating System Interface) ensemble de normes techniques qui spécifient une interface, permettant aux systèmes d’exploitation qui la respectent d’être interchangeables, du point de vue d’un logiciel utilisateur.

Linux, macOS et beaucoup d’autres systèmes respectent cette interface, contrairement à Windows. — Wikipedia

protocol#

In the context of computing, a protocol is a set of rules that govern the exchange of data or the collective behavior of processes or computers in networks. — Wikipedia

registrar#

Domain name registrar. Company or association managing the Internet domain name reservation. — Wikipedia

server#

Software that provides a service. It holds the data and responds to requests from a client. Often, servers and clients are installed on different computers. By extension, the computer on which the servers are installed is called a “server” (e.g. the CLUB1 server). — Wikipedia

static website#

Web site consisting of HTML files whose content does not change until they have been edited. They can be designed “by hand” or using a “static site generator”. Static sites are an interesting way for those looking to offer more energy-efficient sites. — Wikipedia

terminal#

In computing, a terminal was originally a device consisting of a monitor and a keyboard, allowing a human to interact with a remote shared computer. It offered a textual interface, making it possible to enter commands and read the result.

Nowadays, the word “terminal” is often used as a shorthand for a “terminal emulator”. This is a software that recreates the command line interface (CLI) of this hardware. — Wikipedia

TLD#

Top level domain name. For example fr, com or org are TLDs. — Wikipedia

TLS#

(Transport Layer Security) Protocol used to secure exchanges in a computer network. One of its main features is to encrypt all data exchanged between the client and the server, so that no one else can read its content. — Wikipedia

Web#

One of the best known services on Internet. Its full name is “World Wide Web” (also abbreviated “www”). It allows to publish documents and link them together using hypertext links.

A “Web page” usually consists of a document whose content is written in HTML and may include other resources such as images or “style sheets”. The client used to access it is called a “Web browser”. — Wikipedia

Web client#

Client accessible via the Web and executed by a Web browser.

wiki#

Type of Web application that allows to create a site collaboratively. Page editing is possible from the Web browser. The best known being Wikipedia. The name comes from the Hawaiian language in which “wiki” means “quick”. — Wikipedia