server
from
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006)
server
n 1: a person whose occupation is to serve at table (as in a
restaurant) [syn: {waiter}, {server}]
2: (court games) the player who serves to start a point
3: (computer science) a computer that provides client stations
with access to files and printers as shared resources to a
computer network [syn: {server}, {host}]
4: utensil used in serving food or drink
from
Jargon File (4.4.4, 14 Aug 2003)
server
n.
A kind of {daemon} that performs a service for the requester and which
often runs on a computer other than the one on which the
requestor/client runs. A particularly common term on the Internet,
which is rife with web servers, name servers, domain servers, `news
servers', finger servers, and the like.
from
The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (8 July 2008)
server
servers
1. A program which provides some service to other ({client})
programs. The connection between client and server is
normally by means of {message passing}, often over a
{network}, and uses some {protocol} to encode the client's
requests and the server's responses. The server may run
continuously (as a {daemon}), waiting for requests to arrive
or it may be invoked by some higher level daemon which
controls a number of specific servers ({inetd} on {Unix}).
There are many servers associated with the {Internet}, such as
those for {HTTP}, {Network File System}, {Network Information
Service} (NIS), {Domain Name System} (DNS), {FTP}, {news},
{finger}, {Network Time Protocol}. On Unix, a long list can
be found in /etc/services or in the {NIS} database "services".
See {client-server}.
2. A computer which provides some service for other computers
connected to it via a network. The most common example is a
{file server} which has a local disk and services requests
from remote clients to read and write files on that disk,
often using {Sun}'s {Network File System} (NFS) {protocol} or
{Novell Netware} on {PCs}. Another common example is a {web
server}.
[{Jargon File}]
(2003-12-29)
[email protected]