Distributed Name Service (DNS) Management Programming Manual

Glossary
Glossary–8 46958 Tandem Computers Incorporated
Exporter process. A DNS process that manages the time-staged replication of name
definitions on remote nodes. This process is not a NonStop process pair.
Extensible structured token. A token consisting of a token map and a value that is an
extensible structure. Extensible structures can be extended by adding new fields at
their ends in later releases. Such structures are typically used to indicate the attributes
of an object being operated on, and to return status and statistics information in
responses; they can also be used for other purposes. The token map describes the
structure to SPI so that SPI can provide compatibility between different versions of the
structure. Note that a structured token always implies an extensible structure; a token
that has an internal structure, but is not extensible, is still a simple token. Compare
with Simple token; see also Structure, Structured token, and Token map.
Filter. A file containing a list of criteria against which an incoming event message can
be compared so as to be passed along (if it met all criteria) or not (if it failed one or
more criteria).
Filter compiler. A process that accepts a filter specification and produces a file suitable
for loading into an event-message distributor.
Filter file. The file in which the filter compiler stores a compiled filter.
Format. The organization (relative or absolute positions of elements) in a symbolic
representation. In DNS, the attribute of a subsystem-object type that describes the
constraints on names for objects of that type.
GETVERSION command. An information command that reports to the requester the
server version of the subsystem server, and possibly additional version information
about objects defined by the subsystem. All Tandem subsystems with a programmatic
command interface based on SPI have a GETVERSION command.
Group. A set of names defined to DNS; a collection of objects called by a common alias.
For instance, the group SEATTLE_TERMINALS might actually refer to all terminals in
Seattle—\SEATAC.$TERM1, \SEATAC.$TERM2, \STORMY.$TERM3, and so forth.
Other groups might include all lines to New York or all terminals t active from 9 a.m.
to 5 p.m. The objects in a particular group need not be of the same type.
Group name. The name selected by the user to identify a group in DNS.
Guardian name. The name by which the Guardian 90 operating system recognizes a
process or code file. Such names are really addresses that are not independent of
network location.