Server

4 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Server \Serv"er\, n.
     1. One who serves.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. A tray for dishes; a salver. --Randolph.
        [1913 Webster]



From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  server
       n 1: a person whose occupation is to serve at table (as in a
            restaurant) [syn: {waiter}]
       2: (court games) the player who serves to start a point
       3: (computer science) a computer that provides client stations
          with access to files and printers as shared resources to a
          computer network [syn: {host}]
       4: utensil used in serving food or drink

From Jargon File (4.3.1, 29 Jun 2001) [jargon]:

  server n. A kind of {daemon} that performs a service for the requester
     and which often runs on a computer other than the one on which the
     requestor/client runs. A particularly common term on the Internet, which
     is rife with `web servers', `name servers', `domain servers', `news
     servers', `finger servers', and the like.
  
  

From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03) [foldoc]:

  server
       
          1. A program which provides some service to other ({client})
          programs.  The connection between client and server is
          normally by means of message passing, often over a network,
          and uses some {protocol} to encode the client's requests and
          the server's responses.  The server may run continuously (as a
          {daemon}), waiting for requests to arrive or it may be invoked
          by some higher level daemon which controls a number of
          specific servers ({inetd} on {Unix}).  There are many servers
          associated with the Internet, such as those for {Network File
          System}, {Network Information Service} (NIS), {Domain Name
          System} (DNS), {FTP}, {news}, {finger}, {Network Time
          Protocol}.  On Unix, a long list can be found in /etc/services
          or in the {NIS} database "services".  See {client-server}.
       
          2. A computer which provides some service for other computers
          connected to it via a network.  The most common example is a
          {file server} which has a local disk and services requests
          from remote clients to read and write files on that disk,
          often using {Sun}'s {Network File System} (NFS) {protocol} or
          {Novell Netware} on {IBM PC}s.
       
          [{Jargon File}]
       
          (1996-09-08)