Glossary

A Record: An Address Record (A Record) is a DNS record that can be used to point your domain name or hostname to a static IP address.

DNS (Domain Name System): Domain Name System is the system that translates internet domain names into IP addresses. It translates domain names meaningful to humans into the numerical identifiers associated with networking equipment for the purpose of locating and addressing these devices world-wide

Domain Name: Domain name is a unique name that identifies an internet site and must have two or more parts separated by dots. An example of a Domain name is www.synergyhosts.com

Domain Name Server: Domain Name Server is a role running on a server which automatically translates domain names (synergyhosts.com) into their correct TCP/IP addresses (172.212.9.14). Whenever you request a web page, the web browser sends a request to the domain name server to find out what the IP address of the web page is. Computers only understand the numeric IP address, whereas it is easier for us to remember a meaningful words.

Email Alias: This enables you to have several email addresses that all deliver mail to one mailbox account. For example, your main email address within your mailbox might be sales@yourdomain.co.uk. You could then setup email aliases such as info@yourdomain.co.uk and billing@yourdomain.co.uk to your mailbox at sales@yourdomain.co.uk.

Email Attachment: An email attachment is a file, eg. word document, video, graphic or sound file that accompanies an email message.

Email Forwarding: Email forwarding allows you to redirect emails sent to yourname@yourdomain.co.uk to a preferred email account of your choice.

Hostname: The hostname is used to identify a particular host on the Internet. On the Internet, the terms "hostname" and "domain name" are often used interchangeably, but there are subtle technical differences between them.

IMAP: Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) is used for accessing and retrieving email on a remote server from a local client. IMAP and POP3 are the two most prevalent Internet standard protocols for email retrieval. For IMAP we use the secure port 993.

IP Address: An Internet Protocol (IP) address is a numerical identification and logical address that is assigned to devices participating in a computer network utilising the Internet Protocol for communication between its nodes.

MX Record: Mail Exchange Record (MX Record) maps a domain name to a list of mail exchange servers for that domain. For example you would map your domain MX record to webmail.synergyhosts.com. Once mapped, any emails sent to your domain name will be directed to our mail servers and into your mailbox.

Outlook Anywhere: The Outlook Anywhere feature for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 lets your Microsoft Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2003 clients connect to their Exchange servers over the Internet by using the RPC over HTTPS Windows networking component. It is more secure than using POP or IMAP and provides you with all the features that Outlook has to offer.

POP: Post Office Protocol version 3 (POP3) is the method of delivering email from the mail server to the client machine. IMAP and POP3 are the two most prevalent Internet standard protocols for email retrieval. For POP3 we use the secure port 995.

Port: A port number represents an endpoint or "channel" for network communications. Port numbers allow different applications on the same computer to utilise network resources without interfering with each other. For instance, SMTP will most commonly communicate on port 25, whereas POP3 will use port 110.

SMTP: Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is an Internet standard for email transmission across Internet Protocol (IP) networks. The default port used for SMTP is 587 which is becoming the new standard for client to server SMTP communication. Server to server communication uses port 25.

Subdomain: The Domain Name System (DNS) has a tree structure or hierarchy, with each node on the tree being a domain name. A subdomain is a domain that is part of a larger domain, for example, "webmail.synergyhosts.com" and "shop.synergyhosts.com" are subdomains of the "synergyhosts.com" domain.

Suffix: A domain suffix is the last part of a domain name and is often referred to as a TLD (top-level domain) or domain name extension. Popular domain suffixes include ".com," ".net," and ".org," but there are many more domain suffixes approved by ICANN.
Each country also has a unique domain suffix used for websites within the country. For example, UK websites may use the .co.uk domain suffix, South Africa websites may use the .co.za suffix. These country-based TLDs, sometimes referred to as "country codes," are also used by international websites for defining the language of website. For example, the German home page for Google is "www.google.de" instead of "www.google.com."