Glossary Terms

Originally derived from "Tape Archive," a program that collates files for transfer or distribution on UNIX computers. Files processed by this method are usually compressed, commonly called "tarballs," and use the filename extension .tar. Due to the compression commonly used, .tar often precedes the .gz file extension.

A file collated by the tar program, and usually compressed.

A thousand (technically 2^10 or 1024) Gigabytes.

An ongoing message-based conversation on a single subject.

Specifies how long a particular record should be kept in memory before it should be deleted. This is most often used within DNS.