Glossary

This glossary is meant to contain more advanced topics. It is meant as a reference as opposed to the earlier text which is more explainatory.

G

GnutellaNet

The GnutellaNet is an overlay network. This means it is a network that sits on top of the normal internet. GnutellaNet is unstructured. This just means that no particular computer or group of computers controls GnutellaNet; it is probably more democratic than most governments.

As the GnutellaNet is an overlay network, it doesn't have to pay attention to geography. It is likely that you will connect to computers in other countries. Things might be faster if this was not the case. However, they may also be more resilient in the current form.

L

Leaf node

A leaf is the basic connection to the GnutellaNet. A leaf typically connects to three or four ultrapeers. The ultrapeers route searches and keep their leaves connected to the GnutellaNet.

See Also: Ultrapeer.

S

search literals

Double and single quotes can be used so that an entire search term will be matched instead of individual words. Quoting maybe necessary if you wish to search for a phrase with special characters such as the plus and minus signs.

search prefixes

  • browse: - List shared files on the specified host. The format is "browse:ip_address:port". Many portions of the GUI have a menu option, available from a right click, that will browser the specified computer.

  • http: - Download the specified web page. This could be a zip file, a movie, large JPEG, etc.

  • local: - Search results from the local host. Ie, your computer. A regular expression may follow to filter the results. For example, "local:manual" will show all files you share with manual in the file name.

  • magnet: - Search and download the magnet target.

  • push: - The format of this search is "push:guid:ip_address:port/path_to_file". The guid is the Gnutella ID of the computer that has the file of interest. The ip:port is the push proxy that the guid is connected to. Typically this would be an ultrapeer that will allow a proxy download. The guid is a 32 hexadecimal characters.

  • sha1: - A base64 SHA value to search for. It is not automatically downloaded.

  • urn: - Similar to a sha1 search, but the hash value is specified. Ie, urn:sha1:hash value

search requireds

Mini filters are created with the '+' and '-' signs. The plus sign requires that a word is part of the results. The minus sign doesn't display any results with the given phrase. The plus and minus signs can be used to select ambigious terms.

Suppose you wish to find information about apples. You might use a search like apples -computers. You may get even more relevant results by using apples +fruit.

U

Ultrapeer

An ultrapeer is well connected to the GnutellaNet. As ultrapeers must have many connections and route search queries, they require more resources than a leaf node. Ultrapeers will typically be connected to 30+ other ultrapeers and connected to 70+ leaf nodes.

See Also: Leaf node.

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