| Administrative
Contact |
| The person responsible
for the administrative duties of a domain name registered
with us. All correspondence reference contact details
and certain changes to the domain will be sent to the
Administrative Contact e-mail address. |
| Billing Contact
|
| The person responsible
for the payment aspects of a domain registered with us.
All correspondence associated with payments in relation
to the domain will be sent to the Billing Contact e-mail
address. |
| ccTLD (Country
Code Top Level Domain) |
| Every country (and
a few territories) in the world has a reserved, two letter
country code domain that is theirs to use as they see
fit. Some countries run their own ccTLD registry, others
outsource it to a private company, and still others sell
rights to their ccTLD to third parties to run as they
see fit. Examples of ccTLDs are .ca (Canada), .us (United
States), and .to (Tonga). In general, these are registered
by businesses with a coincidental link to the TLD in question.
For example: .to is used more by Torontonians than Tongans
and .tv has more American television content than native
Tuvalu culture. |
| Domain Name
|
|
A domain name is essentially a signpost on the Internet.
Almost every website you've ever been to, and every
email you've ever composed, has used a domain name in
its address.
People register domain names in order to 'stake a claim'
to a particular name -- whether for business or personal
reasons. Once a domain name is registered to a person
or company, it is that person's to use exclusively as
long as they continue to pay the yearly renewal fee
and abide by the terms of use.
Top Level Domain (TLD) The portion of a traditional
domain name that comes after the dot. So, in opensrs.org,
the top level domain is .org. The generic top level
domains (gTLDs) are .com, .net and .org; there are also
country code top level domains (ccTLDs) such as .ca,
or .uk.
Second Level Domain (SLD) The portion of a traditional
domain name that comes before the dot. So, in opensrs.org,
the second level domain is opensrs.
|
| Domain Name System
(DNS) |
|
The Internet was built on the notion that any computer
on a global network can be identified by its numeric
Internet Protocol (IP) address. But since people, and
not machines, are the primary users of the Internet,
a more people-friendly naming system called the Domain
Name System (DNS) was invented. DNS maps a host name
like www.opensrs.org to the IP address of the machine
that hosts the OpenSRS web site. For example, DNS actually
maps the host name www.opensrs.com to the IP address
207.136.98.175
DNS is built upon the notion that some server's are
'authoritative' (meaning, knows all there is to know)
for certain domains. A distributed name server hierarchy,
beginning with the A Root Server and ending at the thousands
of nameservers active on the Internet, ensures that
the naming and directing system works the same from
anywhere.
|
| IP Address
|
| A unique numerical
identifier determined by a global, standardized scheme.
They are four sets of numbers between 0 and 255 separated
by periods, for example, 142.26.1.23, and they are the
means for uniquely identifying machines connected to the
Internet. |
| ICANN |
|
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers
(ICANN) is the non-profit corporation that was formed
to assume responsibility for the IP address space allocation,
protocol parameter assignment, domain name system management,
and root server system management functions previously
performed under U.S. Government contract by IANA and
other entities.
For more information about ICANN, please visit: http://www.icann.org
|
| InterNIC |
| The InterNIC maintains
the root domain registry, containing nameserver and registrar
information for all .com, .net and .org domains. When
an end user registers a domain name through an OpenSRS
RSP, OpenSRS updates it's own database with the full WHOIS
information, and passes select domain information up to
the root registry. |
| Name Server
|
| Nameservers (or Domain
Name Servers) are the machines that perform the DNS function,
containing zone files listing all the hosts on their network,
and their corresponding IP addresses. If a nameserver
is unable to determine which IP address a given hostname
(i.e. www.opensrs.org) should map to, it will at least
be able to point to another nameserver, which will either
contain the information, or pass the request on until
the correct nameserver is found. |
| Nominet |
| The Nominet is the
registry for all .uk domain names, serving a simlar function
as the NSI registry does for the gTLDs. Tucows is an authorized
Nominet agent. |
| RACE code |
| The system used to
translate languages into a common format that computers
are able to store. It is represented by a series of letters,
numbers and hyphens. Multilingual domains will be stored
in this format for use in computers and on the Internet.
|
| Registrant
|
| A person registering
a domain name, either for their own use or on behalf of
a company or organization. |
| Domain Registrar
|
| A "Registrar" (or
"Domain Name Registrar") is an organization like OpenSRS
or Network Solutions that has control over the granting
of domains within certain TLDs (top level domains, like
the generic .com/.org/.net or country-specific .ca/.us/.mx
etc.). |
| Domain Registry
|
| The 'Registry' is
the system backend that is maintained by the operators
of the TLD. Registrar's write new names to a central registry
database, from which the authoritative root (essentially,
a table of all domain names) is built. In the case of
.com, .net and .org, the InterNIC runs the registry, and
qualified registrars have shared access to it. In the
case of many ccTLDs, the registry and registrar functions
are combined within one entity. |
| Reseller |
| A reseller is an
entity offering domain name registrations on behalf of
accredited registrars. They do not have agreements with
ICANN or VeriSign GRS to register domain names but with
the registrars themselves. |
| Server |
| A computer in a network
shared by multiple users. The term may refer to both the
hardware and software or just the software that performs
the service. For example, Web server may refer to the
Web server software in a computer that also runs other
applications or, it may refer to a computer system dedicated
only to the Web server application. There would be several
dedicated Web servers in a large Web site. |
| SRS (Shared Registry
System) |
| Software related
to a protocol system that enables numerous registrars
to provide domain name registration services based on
the agreement between the original registry and the U.S.
Government. Companies that have the technology to use
SRS, a license agreement with VeriSign GRS, and are authorized
by ICANN, can run a business as a registrar. |
| Technical Contact
|
| The person responsible
for handling the technical aspects of a domain registered
with us. This could include assigning the name servers
for a registered domain. You can change these details
when needed. |
| TLD (Top Level
Domain) |
| The suffix at the
end of a URL or an e-mail address. In the URL http://www.internethosting.com/,
".com" is the TLD. TLDs are divided into two types, gTLDs
and ccTLDs. GTLDs (Generic Top Level Domains) are the
most well known, and consist of the .com, .net, .edu,
.org, etc. suffixes. These do not belong to any specific
country. The ccTLDs (Country Code Top Level Domains) are
domains for specific countries, and are expressed with
two alphabetic characters such as jp for Japan, uk for
the United Kingdom, etc. |
| URL (Uniform Resource
Locator) |
| An address that locates
a file on the Internet. An example of a URL is http://www.pickaweb.co.uk |
| WHOIS |
|
WHOIS databases contain nameserver, registrar, and
in some cases, full contact information about a domain
name. Each registrar must maintain a WHOIS database
containing all contact information for the domains they
'host'.
A central registry WHOIS database is maintained by
the InterNIC. This database contains only registrar
and nameserver information for all .com, .net and .org
domains.
|
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