Glossary of Firewall Suite Report Terms

Ad

A graphic or a banner on a web page that when clicked, takes the visitor to another site.

Ad Clicks

A click on an advertisement on a web site which takes a user to another site, it is referred to as an Ad Click.

Ad Views

A web page that presents an ad. Once the visitor has viewed an ad, he/she can click it (see Ad Click). There may be more than one ad for an Ad View.

Authentication

Technique by which access to Internet or Intranet resources requires the user to identify himself or herself by entering a username and password.

Bandwidth

Measure (in kilobytes of data transferred) of the traffic on the site.

Browser

A program used to locate and view HTML documents (Firefox, Safari, Microsoft Internet Explorer, for example.)

Click through rate

Percentage of users who click a viewed advertisement. This is a good indication of the effectiveness of an ad.

Client

The browser (see above) used by a visitor to a Web site.

Client Errors

An error occurring due to an invalid request by the visitor's browser. Client errors are in the 400-range. See "Return Code" definition.

Company Database

The database installed and used by Firewall Suite to look up the company name, city, state and country corresponding to a specific domain name.

Cookies

Persistent Client-State HTTP Cookies are files containing information about visitors to a web site (e.g., user name and preferences). This information is provided by the user during the first visit to a Web server. The server records this information in a text file and stores this file on the visitors hard drive. When the visitor accesses the same web site again, the server looks for the cookie and configures itself based on the information provided.

Domain Name

The text name corresponding to the numeric IP address of a computer on the Internet (such as www.m86security.com).

Domain Name Lookup

The process of converting a numeric IP address into a text name (for example, 192.0.34.166 is converted to example.com).

Filters

A means of narrowing the scope of a report or view by specifying ranges or types of data to include or exclude.

Forms

An HTML page which passes variables back to the server. These pages are used to gather information from users. Also referred to as scripts.

FTP

File Transfer Protocol is a standard method of sending files between computers over the Internet.

GIF

Graphics Interchange Format is an image file format commonly used in HTML documents.

Hit

An action on the Web site, such as when a user views a page or downloads a file.

Home Page

The main page of a Web site. The home page provides visitors with an overview and links to the rest of the site. It often contains or links to a Table of contents for the site.

Home Page URL

The local path or Internet URL to the default page of the Web site for which Firewall Suite reports will be generated.

HTML

Hyper Text Markup Language is used to write documents for the World Wide Web to specify hypertext links between related objects and documents.

HTTP

Hyper Text Transfer Protocol is a standard method of transferring data between a Web server and a Web browser.

IP Address

Internet Protocol address identifying a computer connected to the Internet.

Log File

A file created by a web or proxy server which contains all of the access information regarding the activity on that server.

Page Views

Also called Page Impressions. Hit to HTML pages only (access to non-HTML documents are not counted).

Platform

The operating system (i.e. Microsoft Windows 95, 98, NT, etc.) used by a visitor to the site.

Protocol

An established method of exchanging data over the Internet.

Referrer

URL of an HTML page that refers to the site.

Return Code

The return status of the request which specifies whether the transfer was successful or not, and why.

Possible "Success" codes are:

200 = Success: OK

201 = Success: Created

202 = Success: Accepted

203 = Success: Partial Information

204 = Success: No Response

300 = Success: Redirected

301 = Success: Moved

302 = Success: Found

303 = Success: New Method

304 = Success: Not Modified

Possible "Failed" codes are:

400 = Failed: Bad Request

401 = Failed: Unauthorized

402 = Failed: Payment Required

403 = Failed: Forbidden

404 = Failed: Not Found

500 = Failed: Internal Error

501 = Failed: Not Implemented

502 = Failed: Overloaded Temporarily

503 = Failed: Gateway Timeout

Server

A computer that hosts information available to anyone accessing the Internet.

Server Error

An error occurring at the server. Web server errors have codes in the 500 range.

Spiders

An automated program which searches the Internet.

Suffix (Domain Name)

The two, three, or four letter (or more) suffix of a domain can be used to identify the type of organization.

Two letter suffixes are reserved for country codes (for intance .us = USA)

Some possible "Suffixes" are:

.com = Commercial

.edu = Educational

.int = International

.gov = US Government

.mil = US Military

.net = Network

.org = Organization

.info = Informational

User Agent

Fields in an extended Web server log file identifying the browser and platform used by a visitor.

URL

Uniform Resource Locator is a means of identifying an exact location on the Internet. For example, https://support.trustwave.com/default.asp is the URL which defines the use of HTTP to access the Web page default.asp in the /support/ directory on the Trustwave Web site). As the previous example shows, a URL is comprised of four parts: Protocol Type (HTTP), Machine Name (www.trustwave.com), Directory Path (/support/), and File Name (default.asp).

User Session

A session of activity (all hits) for one user of a web site. A unique user is determined by the IP address or cookie. By default, a user session is terminated when a user is inactive for more than 30 minutes. This duration can be changed from General panel in the Options, Web Log Analysis dialog. Synonym: Visit.

View,Page

Each request for a particular web page which displays an ad. Also referred to as an impression.

Visit

Commonly called User Session. All activity for one user of a web site. By default, a user session is terminated when a user is inactive for more than 30 minutes.