1. (Or "siten
AMe"). The unique n
AMe by which a computer is known on a
network, used to identify it in {electronic mail}, {Usenet} {news}, or other forms of electronic information interchange. On
Internet the hostn
AMe is an
ASCII string, e.g. "foldoc.doc.ic.ac.uk" which, consists of a local part (foldoc) and a
domain n
AMe (doc.ic.ac.uk). The hostn
AMe is translated into an
Internet address either via the /etc/hosts file,
NIS or by the
Domain NAMe System (DNS) or
resolver. It is possible for one computer to have several hostn
AMes (aliases) though one is designated as its
canonical n
AMe. It is often possible to guess a hostn
AMe for a particular institution. This is useful if you want to know if they operate network services like
anonymous FTP, {World-Wide Web} or {finger}. First try the institution' s n
AMe or obvious abbreviations thereof, with the appropriate
domain appended, e.g. "mit.edu". If this fails, prepend "ftp." or "www." as appropriate, e.g. "www.data-io.com". You can use the
ping command as a quick way to test whether a hostn
AMe is valid. The folklore interest of hostn
AMes stems from the creativity and humour they often display. Interpreting a siten
AMe is not unlike interpreting a vanity licence plate one has to mentally unpack it, allowing for mono-case and length restrictions and the lack of whitespace. Hacker tradition deprecates dull, institutional-sounding n
AMes in favour of punchy, humorous, and clever coinages (except that it is considered appropriate for the official public gateway machine of an organisation to bear the organisation' s n
AMe or acronym). Mythological references, cartoon characters, animal n
AMes, and allusions to SF or fantasy literature are probably the most popular sources for siten
AMes (in roughly descending order). The obligatory comment is Harris' s L
AMent: "All the good ones are taken!" See also
network address. 2.
Berkeley Unix command to set and get the application level n
AMe used by the host.
Unix manual page: hostn
AMe(1). (1995-02-16)
In addition suitable contents:
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