Glossary - N

NAT

Network Address Translation
Technology that lends itself to internal network security by allowing privately addressed networks to access registered networks, such as the Internet, to provide address conservation and eliminate the overhead of host renumbering.

Native Applications (ATM)

Applications that have been developed for non-ATM environment communications platforms (i.e. LAN applications).

NBS

National Bureau of Standards (standard, network)
Part of the US Department of Commerce, now Nist (National Institute of Standards and Technology).

NDIS

Network Driver Interface Specification(network)
Generic name for a device driver for a NIC, which is independent of any hardware or software implementation. Provides a multi-protocol API to a single network interface card for PCs on a LAN. See NIC, Adapter card, ODI.

Network Device Interface Specification (network)
A programming interface for different protocols sharing the same network hardware. The NDIS 2.0 specification is 5000 lines and seems to be written by Microsoft and 3Com.

Netatalk (communications)

An AppleTalk Protocol Suite for Unix (The other public Domain suite is CAP). Netatalk supports the following AppleTalk protocols: EtherTalk Phase I and II, DDP, RTMP, NBP, ZIP, AppleTalk Echo Protocol (AEP) , ATP, PAP, ASP, and AFP.
DDP is in the kernel. atalkd implements RTMP, Name Binding Protocol (NBP), Zone Information Protocol (ZIP), and AppleTalk Echo Protocol (AEP). It is the AppleTalk equivalent of Unix routed and ifconfig. There is also a client-stub library for NBP. AppleTalk Transaction Protocol (ATP) and AppleTalk Session Protocol (ASP) are implemented as libraries. papd allows Macs to spool to lpd or a pipe, and pap allows Unix machines to print to AppleTalk connected printers. psf is a PostScript printer filter for lpd, designed to use pap. psorder is a PostScript reverser, called by psf to reverse pages printed to face-up stacking printers. afpd provides Macs with an interface to the Unix file system.
The latest full release version is available via anonymous ftp from ftp://terminator.rs.itd.umich.edu/~ftp/unix/netatalk.

Netbios

Network Basic Input Output System (network)
An applications programming interface (API) which activates network operations on IBM PC compatibles running under Microsoft's DOS. It is a set of network commands that the application program issues in order to transmit and receive data to another host on the network. The commands are interpreted by a network control program or network operating system that is NetBIOS compatible.

Netbeui

NetBIOS Extended User Interface (network)
The network transport protocol used by all of Microsoft's network systems and IBM's LANServer based systems.
NetBEUI is often confused with NetBIOS. NetBIOS is the applications programming interface and NetBEUI is the transport protocol.

Netiquette (/net'ee-ket/ or /net'i-ket/)

Network etiquette (convention, networking)
The conventions of politeness recognised on Usenet and in mailing lists, such as not (cross-)posting to inappropriate groups and refraining from commercial advertising outside the biz groups. Described in the RFC1855.
The most important rule of netiquette is "Think before you post". If what you intend to post will not make a positive contribution to the newsgroup and be of interest to several readers, don't post it! Personal messages to one or two individuals should not be posted to newsgroups, use private e-mail instead.
When following up an article, quote the minimum necessary to give some context to your reply and be careful to attribute the quote to the right person. If the article you are responding to was posted to several groups, edit the distribution (Newsgroups) header to contain only those groups which are appropriate to your reply, especially if the original message was posted to one or more inappropriate groups in the first place.
Re-read and edit your posting carefully before you post. Check the spelling and grammar. Keep your lines to less than 70 characters. Don't post test messages (except to test groups) - wait until you have something to say. When posting humorous or sarcastic comments, it is conventional to append a smiley, but don't overuse them.
Before asking a question, read the messages already in the group and read the group's FAQ if it has one. When you do post a question, follow it with "please reply by mail and I will post a summary if requested" and make sure you DO post a summary if requested, or if only a few people were interested, send them a summary by mail. This avoids umpteen people posting the same answer to the group and umpteen others posting "me too"s.
If you believe someone has violated netiquette, send them a message by private e-mail, DO NOT post a follow-up to the news. And be polite, they may not realise their mistake, they might be a beginner or may not even have been responsible for the "crime" - their account may have been used by someone else or their address forged.
Be proud of your postings but don't post just to see your name in pixels. Remember: your future employer may be reading.
Web site: Netiquette Guidelines.

Netware (operating system, networking)

Novell, Inc.'s proprietary networking operating system for the IBM PC. NetWare uses the IPX/SPX, NetBEUI or network protocols. It supports MS-DOS, Microsoft Windows, OS/2, Macintosh and Unix clients. NetWare for Unix lets users access Unix hosts.
NetWare 2.2 is a 16 bit operating system, versions 4.x and 3.x are 32 bit operating systems.

News - Netnews (network, Internet)

1. The software that makes Usenet run.
2. The content of Usenet. "I read netnews right after my mail most mornings".

Neutral Interconnect (network, Internet)

Network infrastructure where network service providers can freely exchange traffic without policy restrictions. Examples are the GIX (Global Internet Exchange) at MAE-East (A Metropolitan Area Ethernet around Washington), and the Ebone (European Backbone).

Newsgroup (network, messaging, Internet)

One of Usenet's huge collection of topic groups or fora. Usenet groups can be "unmoderated" (anyone can post) or "moderated" (submissions are automatically directed to a moderator, who edits or filters and then posts the results). Some newsgroups have parallel mailing lists for Internet people with no netnews access, with postings to the group automatically propagated to the list and vice versa. Some moderated groups (especially those which are actually gatewayed Internet mailing lists) are distributed as "digests", with groups of postings periodically collected into a single large posting with an index.
Among the best-known are comp.lang.c (the C-language forum), comp.arch (on computer architectures), comp.Unix.wizards (for Unix wizards), rec.arts.sf-lovers (for science-fiction fans), and talk.politics.misc (miscellaneous political discussions and flamage).
See also netiquette.

NEXT

Near End CrossTalk loss (physical layer)

NFS

Network File System (network)
A protocol developed by Sun Microsystems, and defined in RFC 1094, which allows a computer to access files over a network as if they were on its local disks. This protocol has been incorporated in products by more than two hundred companies, and is now a de facto standard. NFS is implemented using a connectionless protocol (UDP) in order to make it stateless.

NGII

Next Generation Internet Initiative (network, Internet)
Project initiated by American President Bill Clinton to promote new Internet generation.

NHRP

Next Hop Resolution Protocol
A protocol proposed to be used for ATM address resolution based on Classical IP. In particular if an address request cannot be served by a node it is forwardedto the next server-node on the path to the destination until finally the ATM-IP address mapping can be accomplished.

NIC

Network Interface Card or Controller (hardware, network)
The hardware communications interface (adapter circuit board) required for the DTE (workstation, PC) to access the network (same as Adapter Card); provide a physical connection to a network.

Network Information Center (network, Internet)
A body that provides information, assistance and services to network users. These will typically include telephone and electronic mail "help desk" type services for users and network information services such as hostnames and addresses which are accessed automatically by computers using some client-server protocol (usually Sun's NIS). See also Network Operations Center.

NIS

Network Information Service (networking, protocol)
Sun Microsystems'version of coordination of network information like hostnames and account information. Partially similar to DNS. At the beginning called Yellow Pages (YP), NIS is a client-server protocol for distributing system configuration data such as user and host names between computers on a network. Sun licenses the technology to virtually all other Unix vendors.
The name "Yellow Pages" is a registered trademark in the United Kingdom of British Telecommunications plc for their (paper) commercial telephone directory. Sun changed the name of their system to NIS, though all the commands and functions still start with "yp", e.g. ypcat, ypmatch, ypwhich.

Nist

National Institute of Standards and Technology(standard, body)
United States governmental body that provides assistance in developing standards. Formerly the National Bureau of Standards.

N-ISDN

Narrowband Integrated Services Digital Network (network)
Predecessor to the B-ISDN, N-ISDN encompasses the original standards for the ISDN.

NM

Network Management Entity (ATM)

NMF

Network Management Forum (standard, vendor consortium)
Vendor consortium organisation on networking standards that focuses on network management. NMF Web site: http://www.nmf.org/.

NML

Network Management Layer (ATM)

NMS

Network Management System/Station
Generic term for the software and hardware that supports OAM&P functions and provides theses services to network managers, operators, and users.

NNI

Network-to-Network Interface (ATM)
ITU-T-specified standard interface between nodes within the same network. The ATM Forum distinguishes between two standards, one for private networks called P-NNIand one for public networks known as public NNI (or just NNI). See UNI.

NNTP

Network News Transfer Protocol(network, Internet)
A protocol defined in RFC 977 for the distribution, inquiry, retrieval and posting of Usenet news articles over the Internet. It is designed to be used between a news reader client such as nn or GNUS and a news server. It is normally used on a connection to TCP port 119 on the news server. NNTP is a simple ASCII text protocol so even if you don't have a news reader program, you can just connect to the server using telnet: telnet news 119 where news is the name of your server (e.g. news.doc.ic.ac.uk). Typing HELP will give a list of other commands.

NOC

Network Operation Center (network)
A location from which the operation of a network or internet is monitored. Additionally, this center usually serves as a clearinghouse for connectivity problems and efforts to resolve those problems. See also: Network Information Center.

NPC

Network Parameter Control (ATM)
Traffic management mechanism (performed at the NNI) exercised by a network for traffic received by another network. NPC is used to check the validity of the VPI/VCI, monitor cells of a connection to determine if they conform to the traffic descriptors, as will as tag, discard or pass the con-conforming cells.

NPH

Non-Parsed Header (network, Internet)
A kind of HTTP header non parsed by the server.

<B>NRZ

Non-Return to Zero (communications)
Technique for line signal encoding of ones and zero to avoid generating a DC component in the line signal.

NRZI

Non-Return to Zero Inverted (communications)
A binary code format in which a data 0 produces a transition (either from 0 to 1 or from 1 to 0) in the code and a 1 in the data produces no change in the code. It does not mean that the NRZ code is merely inverted. The main advantage of NRZI is that it does not matter at what point in the transmission that one starts to decode, the subsequent data will be the same. The code signal actually sent to the modem and transmitted by an amateur packet TNC, is in NRZI format. On receive the TNC converts it back to NRZ format for the CPU to process. NRZI is also known as NRZ-S (space).

NS

Network Supervision (network)

NSAP

Network Services Access Point (network, normalization)
In the OSI environment it is the SAP between the network and the transport layers,which identifies a DTE by a unique address. Generic standard for a network address consisting of 20 octets. ATM has specified E.164 for public network addressing and the NSAP address structure for private network addresses.

NSAPA

Network Services Access Point Address (ATM)
OSI address format used as the model for the ATM Address defined in UNI 3.0.

NSF

National Science Foundation (network, Internet)
A US government agency whose purpose is to promote the advancement of science. NSF funds science researchers, scientific projects, and infrastructure to improve the quality of scientific research. The NSFNET is funded by NSF.

NT

Network Termination

NTSC

National TV Standard Committee
Standard used in the US and Japan for television coding and transmissions. Color rendering may not be perfect, so people have found another meaning for NTSC: "Never The Same Color".

Numeris (network)

Name given by France Telecom, the french telephone network operator, to its ISDN network.

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