fire from FOLDOC

firebottle

firefighting

1. What sysadmins have to do to correct sudden operational problems. An opposite of hacking. "Been hacking your new newsreader?" "No, a power glitch hosed the network and I spent the whole afternoon fighting fires."

2. The act of throwing lots of manpower and late nights at a project, especially to get it out before deadline. See also gang bang, Mongolian Hordes technique; however, the term "firefighting" connotes that the effort is going into chasing bugs rather than adding features.

Last updated: 1994-12-01

Firefox

<web>

A complete free, open-source web browser from the Mozilla Foundation and therefore a true code descendent of Netscape Navigator. The first non-beta release was in late 2004.

Firefox Home.

Last updated: 2005-01-26

firehose syndrome

<networking, jargon>

An absence, failure or inadequacy of flow control mechanisms causing the sender to overwhelm the receiver. The implication is that, like trying to drink from a firehose, the consequenses are worse than just loss of data, e.g. the receiver may crash.

See ping-flood.

[Jargon File]

Last updated: 2007-03-12

firewall

<networking, security>

A dedicated gateway server with special security precautions on it, used to service external connections (typically from the public Internet) and to protect servers and networks hidden behind it from crackers.

As well as filtering incoming traffic, a firewall should also filter outgoing traffic ("egress filtering") to avoid the embarrassment or data leaks that could be caused if the machine is compromised.

A firewall may be a separate hardware unit, possibly a dedicated network appliance, or it may be implemented entirely in software, possibly running on a virtual machine.

The typical hardware firewall is an inexpensive microprocessor-based Unix machine with no critical data, with public network ports on it, but just one carefully watched connection back to the rest of the cluster. The special precautions may include threat monitoring, call-back, and even a complete iron box keyable to particular incoming IDs or activity patterns.

The type of network and security environment of a firewall machine is often called a De-Militarised Zone (DMZ). It may contain other servers such as e-mail servers or proxy gateways - machines that need to be publicly accessible but also need some access to internal systems.

Also known as a (Venus) flytrap after the insect-eating plant.

Last updated: 2014-07-15

firewall code

<programming>

Code designed to limit adverse effects of bugs or bad input.

The term may also refer to user interface design intended to steer the user away from potentially harmful actions, e.g. burying the function to delete your account at the bottom of the "Advanced" options.

Another example is a sanity check inserted to catch a can't happen error. When fixing a bug, you might also insert firewall code which would have prevented the bug from doing any damage, in case something similar ever happens.

[Jargon File]

Last updated: 2020-06-25

firewall machine

<networking, security>

A network firewall implemented as a separate piece of hardware or a virtual machine.

Last updated: 2020-06-25

FireWire

High Performance Serial Bus

fireworks mode

The mode a machine is sometimes said to be in when it is performing a crash and burn operation.

[Jargon File]

Nearby terms:

finn ♦ FIPS ♦ FIR ♦ firebottle ♦ firefighting ♦ Firefox ♦ firehose syndrome

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