aliasing: Substituting one item for another. The iPlanet Compass Server uses aliasing when importing resource descriptions from another Compass Server that has a different schema.
browse: Looking through the categorical divisions of the resources in a Compass database.
catalog: See index.
category: A logical grouping of resources in the Compass database. Collectively, a set of categories is sometimes called a taxonomy.
child: A category that is a subcategory of another category.
classification rules: A set of rules used to assign resources to a category or to several categories.
Compass: iPlanet's technology to improve user access to network resources.
Compass database: A searchable database of resource descriptions, usually generated by a robot.
Compass Server: A server that holds a database of resource descriptions gathered by robots, usually categorized. Users can search the resource descriptions or browse through the categories to locate particular resources.
crawler: See robot.
depth: The number of links followed from a site's starting point. When you define a site, you define the number of links the robot can follow away from that point. This limits the depth of its search.
distributed indexing: The process of assigning different robots to index different parts of the network. This reduces the load on each robot. A single Compass Server can then gather all the resource descriptions from all the different robots by importing resource descriptions from each.
document: A file on the network, most often a web page or word processing document, but also including text files, spreadsheets, and so on. This is a generic term for a resource indexed by the Compass Server.
domain: A group of web servers sharing a common DNS domain. For example, www.iplanet.com and home.iplanet.com both share the domain iplanet.com.
enumeration: The phase of a robot's operation in which it seeks for resources, including extracting and following hypertext links.
extracting: The process of locating hypertext links in a document. Each extracted link is added to the URL pool for further processing.
filtering: The process of determining whether a document is part of a site that should be included in the index.
filters: Sets of rules that define particular types of resource. These filters are used by site definitions to define types of resources the robot should accept or ignore.
fresh start: Starting the robot from its starting points. A fresh start deletes the robot's state information, causing it to begin its next run from its initial state. This is the opposite of a restart.
generation: The phase of a robot's operation in which it produces a resource description for each resource discovered in the enumeration phase.
HTTP: Hypertext Transfer Protocol. The method for exchanging information between web servers and clients.
idle: A state in which the robot is still running, but has processed all the URLs in its URL pool. In this state, the robot can still respond to status requests.
import agent: The process used for importing.
importing: The process of bringing new or updated resource descriptions from another database into a Compass Server.
index: A centralized, searchable database of resources or documents. Also called a catalog.
indexing: The process of providing a centralized, searchable database of resources. Also called cataloging.
metainformation: Information about a resource, such as the name of the author, the title of a document, the date of creation, and so on. The Compass Server robot uses metainformation as well as document contents when creating resource descriptions.
peer: A subcategory that has the same parent category as another.
RD: See resource description.
RDM: See resource description message.
resource: Any item on a network that can be identified by a Uniform Resource Locator (URL), such as a web page, a document, or an FTP directory. A resource is often referred to informally as a document.
resource description: Information about a particular resource in a standard format. The Compass database is a database of resource descriptions.
resource description message: A protocol used by Compass Servers to request and deliver resource descriptions. The contents of the RDM are in the SOIF format. RDM sits on top of the HTTP protocol.
restart: Starting the robot without deleting its state information, causing it to start running in the same state in which it previously stopped. This is the opposite of a fresh start.
robot: A small program that finds all the resources located in a specific portion of a network.
robots.txt: A file used by web servers to allow or deny access to portions of a web site.
rules: Logical tests applied to determine whether a condition is met. The robot uses rules in two places: as part of filters for determining types of content to index, and in classification rules to determine what category to assign to a resource.
schema: The formal definition of the contents of a resource description.
scoping: Placing restrictions on the resource descriptions imported by an import agent. The syntax used is the same as that for user searches.
Secure Sockets Layer: A software library establishing secure connection between two parties (client and server) used to implement HTTPS, the secure version of HTTP.
Server Manager: The administration server for a iPlanet server product.
site: A location on the network where the robot goes to look for resources. You determine the address of the site and the kinds of document you want to index there in a site definition.
site definition: Constraints placed on where a robot can go to locate resources. Using site definitions, you can limit a robot to a particular server, a specified group of servers, or a domain. A site definition includes filters that describe what types of documents the robot should index from the site.
SOIF: See Summary Object Interchange Format.
spider: See robot.
SSL: See Secure Sockets Layer.
starting points: The list of sites a Compass robot visits to begin enumeration of resources.
Summary Object Interchange Format: A standard, extensible text format used for resource descriptions. Each item in the definition consists of a name and a value.
taxonomy: A system of categories for the resources in a Compass system. For a full description of taxonomies, see Understanding Categories.
URI: Uniform Resource Indicator. A standard notation for specifying the path and file name of a resource on a server. The server translates the URI into the native format for its operating system.
URL: Uniform Resource Locator. The addressing system used by clients and servers to specify resource locations. A URL is often called a location. The format of a URL is [protocol]://[host:port]/[URI]
URL pool: The list of URLs for the robot to process. When the robot starts, the URL pool consists of the starting points, but it is quickly augmented with any resources found during enumeration.