12. Glossary of Terms

Note

Many terms here have been reproduced from various locations across the Internet and are governed by the licenses surrounding the source material. Please see the reference links for specifics on usage and reproducibility.

ACL
Access Control List
A list of permissions attached to an object. An ACL specifies which users or system processes are granted access to objects, as well as what operations are allowed on given objects. Each entry in a typical ACL specifies a subject and an operation.
AIDE
Advanced Intrusion Detection Environment
An intrusion detection system for checking the integrity of files under Linux. AIDE can be used to help track file integrity by comparing a snapshot of the system’s files prior to and after a suspected incident. It is maintained by Rami Lehti and Pablo Virolainen.
Auditd
The userspace component to the Linux Auditing System. It is responsible for writing audit records to the disk. Viewing the logs is done with the ausearch or aureport utilities. Configuring the audit rules is done with the auditctl utility. During startup, the rules in /etc/audit/audit.rules are read by auditctl. The audit daemon itself has some configuration options that the admin may wish to customize. They are found in the auditd.conf file.
Beaker

An acceptance testing harness, written in Ruby, by the Puppet team.

Source: Beaker Source Repository:

BIOS
Basic Input/Output System

A type of firmware used to perform hardware initialization during the booting process (power-on startup) on IBM PC compatible computers.

Source: Wikipedia: BIOS

CA
Certificate Authority
An entity that issues X.509 digital certificates.
CentOS
Community Enterprise Operating System
An Enterprise-grade Operating System that is mostly compatible with a prominent Linux distribution.
CLI
Command Line Interface

A means of interacting with a computer program where the user (or client) issues commands to the program in the form of successive lines of text (command lines).

Code Manager

[Puppet] Code Manager automates the management and deployment of your Puppet code. Push code updates to your source control repo, and then Puppet syncs the code to your masters, so that all your servers start running the new code at the same time, without interrupting agent runs.

Source: Managing code with Code Manager See Also: r10k

Control Repo

A version control repository containing all of the required modules, data, and configuration for a Puppet environment.

See Puppet, Inc. documentation: https://docs.puppet.com/pe/latest/cmgmt_control_repo.html

CPU
Central Processing Unit

A central processing unit (CPU) is the electronic circuitry within a computer that carries out the instructions of a computer program by performing the basic arithmetic, logical, control and input/output (I/O) operations specified by the instructions

Source: Wikipedia: Central Processing Unit

DAC
Discretionary Access Control

A type of access control defined by the Trusted Computer System Evaluation Criteria “as a means of restricting access to objects based on the identity of subjects and/or groups to which they belong. The controls are discretionary in the sense that a subject with a certain access permission is capable of passing that permission (perhaps indirectly) on to any other subject (unless restrained by mandatory access control)”.

Source: Wikipedia: Discretionary access control

DHCP
Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol
A network protocol that enables a server to automatically assign an IP address to a computer.
DNS
Domain Name System
A database system that translates a computer’s fully qualified domain name into an IP address and the reverse.
Docker

Docker containers wrap a piece of software in a complete filesystem that contains everything needed to run: code, runtime, system tools, system libraries – anything that can be installed on a server. This guarantees that the software will always run the same, regardless of its environment.

Source: Docker: What is Docker?

DoS
Denial of Service
Denial of Service Attack

An attempt to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users, such as to temporarily or indefinitely interrupt or suspend services of a host connected to the Internet.

Source: Wikipedia: Denial-of-service attack

DSL
Domain Specific Language

A computer language specialized to a particular application domain.

Source: Wikipedia: Domain-specific language

EL
Enterprise Linux
In the context of SIMP, EL is a generic term for Enterprise Linux and covers both RHEL and CentOS as well as other RHEL derivatives such as Oracle Linux.
Elasticsearch

A distributed, RESTful search and analytics engine capable of solving a growing number of use cases. As the heart of the Elastic Stack, it centrally stores your data so you can discover the expected and uncover the unexpected.

Source: Elasticsearch Homepage

ELG
An acronym for Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Grafana
ENC
External Node Classifier

An arbitrary script or application which can tell Puppet which classes a node should have. It can replace or work in concert with the node definitions in the main site manifest (site.pp).

The Puppet Enterprise Console and The Foreman are two examples of External Node Classifiers.

Source: External Node Classifiers

EPEL
Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux

A Fedora Special Interest Group that creates, maintains, and manages a high quality set of additional packages for Enterprise Linux, including, but not limited to, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), CentOS and Scientific Linux (SL), Oracle Linux (OL).E

EPEL packages are usually based on their Fedora counterparts and will never conflict with or replace packages in the base Enterprise Linux distributions. EPEL uses much of the same infrastructure as Fedora, including buildsystem, bugzilla instance, updates manager, mirror manager and more.

Source: EPEL Homepage

Facter

Cross-platform system profiling library for use with Puppet and other management tools. It discovers and reports per-node facts, which are available in your Puppet manifests as variables.

Source: Facter Documentation

FIPS
Federal Information Processing Standard

Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) Publications are standards issued by NIST after approval by the Secretary of Commerce pursuant to the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA)

The particular standard of note in SIMP is FIPS 140-2

Source: FIPS Publications

FOSS
Open Source

Following an Open Source Initiative approved License.

See: The Open Source Definition

FQDN
Fully Qualified Domain Name
A domain name that specifies its exact location in the tree hierarchy of the DNS. It specifies all domain levels, including the top-level domain and the root zone. An FQDN is distinguished by its unambiguity; it can only be interpreted one way.
git
A version control system that supports branches.
GPG
GnuPG
Gnu Privacy Guard

A complete and free implementation of the OpenPGP standard as defined by RFC4880 (also known as PGP).

Source: GnuPG Homepage

Grafana

A system of pluggable panels and data sources allowing easy extensibility and a variety of panels, including fully featured graph panels with rich visualization options. There is built in support for many of the most popular time series data sources.

Source: Grafana Homepage

GUI
Graphical User Interface

A type of interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and visual indicators such as secondary notation, as opposed to text-based interfaces, typed command labels or text navigation.

Source: Wikipedia: Graphical User Interface

HDD
Hard Disk Drive
A device for storing and retrieving digital information, primarily computer data.
Hiera

A key/value lookup tool for configuration data, built to make Puppet better and let you set node-specific data without repeating yourself.

Source: Hiera Overview

IMA
Integrity Management Architecture

The integrity subsystem is to detect if files have been accidentally or maliciously altered, both remotely and locally.

Source: IMA Sourceforge Page

initrd
The Initial RAMDisk. A complete environment that is loaded at boot time to enable booting the rest of the operating system.
InSpec

An open-source testing framework for infrastructure with a human-readable language for specifying compliance, security and other policy requirements.

Source: InSpec Homepage

IP
IP Address
Internet Protocol Address

A numerical label assigned to each device (e.g., computer, printer) participating in a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication.

Source: Wikipedia: IP Address

IP6Tables
Internet Protocol 6 Tables
A user space application that provides an interface to the IPv6 firewall rules on modern Linux systems.
IPTables
Internet Protocol Tables
A user space application that provides an interface to the IPv4 firewall rules on modern Linux systems.
ISO
ISO 9660

A file system standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) or optical disc media.

KDC
Key Distribution Center
Part of a cryptosystem intended to reduce the risks inherent in exchanging keys. KDCs often operate in systems within which some users may have permission to use certain services at some times and not at others.
Kerberos
A computer network authentication protocol that works on the basis of “tickets” to allow nodes communicating over a non-secure network to prove their identity to one another in a secure manner.
Kickstart

Automated installation procedure for Red Hat Linux and other Linux distributions.

See: Kickstart

LDAP
Lightweight Directory Access Protocol
A protocol for querying and modifying LDAP directory services including information such as names, addresses, email, phone numbers, and other information from an online directory.
LDIF
Lightweight Directory Interchange Format

A standard plain text data interchange format for representing LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) directory content and update requests. LDIF conveys directory content as a set of records, one record for each object (or entry). It also represents update requests, such as Add, Modify, Delete, and Rename, as a set of records, one record for each update request.

Logstash

An open source, server-side data processing pipeline that ingests data from a multitude of sources simultaneously, transforms it, and then sends it to your favorite “stash.”

Source: Logstash Homepage

LUKS
Linux Unified Key Setup

The standard for Linux hard disk encryption.

See: The LUKS Homepage

MAC
MAC Address
Media Access Control
Media Access Control Address

A unique identifier assigned to network interfaces for communications on the physical network segment.

Source: Wikipedia: MAC address

Mandatory Access Control

A type of access control by which the operating system constrains the ability of a subject or initiator to access or generally perform some sort of operation on an object or target.

Source: Wikipedia: Mandatory access control

Meltdown

A hardware vulnerability affecting Intel x86 microprocessors, IBM POWER processors, and some ARM-based microprocessors. It allows a rogue process to read all memory, even when it is not authorized to do so.

Source: Wikipedia: Meltdown (security vulnerability)

NAT
Network Address Translation
The process of modifying IP address information in IP packet headers while in transit across a traffic routing device.
NFS
Network File System
A distributed file system protocol that allows a user on a client computer to access files over a network in a manner similar to how local storage is accessed.
NIST
National Institute of Standards and Technology

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) was founded in 1901 and now part of the U.S. Department of Commerce. NIST is one of the nation’s oldest physical science laboratories.

Source: NIST - About NIST

NIST 800-171
NIST SP 800-171
NIST Special Publication 800-171

Protecting Controlled Unclassified Information in Nonfederal Information Systems and Organizations

See: SP 800-171

NIST 800-53
NIST SP 800-53
NIST Special Publication 800-53

Security and Privacy Controls for Federal Information Systems and Organizations

See: SP 800-53

NIST SP
NIST Special Publication

A set of publications that provide computer/cyber/information security and guidelines, recommendations, and reference materials.

See: NIST Special Publications

OpenSCAP

The OpenSCAP project provides tools that are free to use anywhere you like, for any purpose. Availability of the code results in greater portability – anyone can send patches to add support for their platform of choice.

Source: OpenSCAP Features

OS
Operating System

System software that manages computer hardware and software resources and provides common services for computer programs. All computer programs, excluding firmware, require an operating system to function.

Source: Wikipedia: Operating system

PAM
Pluggable Authentication Modules
A mechanism to integrate multiple low-level authentication schemes into a high-level application programming interface (API). It allows programs that rely on authentication to be written independent of the underlying authentication scheme.
PEM
Privacy Enhanced Mail
An early standard for securing electronic mail. This is the public-key of a specific certificate. This is also the format used for Certificate Authority certificates.
PERL
Practical Extraction and Report Language
A high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. PERL was originally developed by Larry Wall in 1987 as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier.
PKI
Public Key Infrastructure
A security architecture that has been introduced to provide an increased level of confidence for exchanging information over an increasingly insecure Internet. PKI enables users of a basically insecure public networks, such as the Internet, to securely authenticate to systems and exchange data. The exchange of data is done by using a combination of cryptographically bound public and private keys.
Puppet
An Open Source configuration management tool written and maintained by Puppet, Inc.. Written as a Ruby DSL, Puppet provides a declarative language that allows system administrators to provide a consistently applied management infrastructure. Users describes system resource and resource state in the Puppet language. Puppet discovers system specific information via Facter and compiles Puppet manifests into a system-specific catalog containing resources and resource dependencies, which are applied to each client system.
Puppet Data Type

Added in Puppet version 4, strong data types allow for the enforcement of inherent parameter validation as well as a better understanding of what function the data performs in classes.

See: Language: Data Types

Puppet Master
For the purposes of this document, this is the Server upon which the puppetserver process is running and to which your clients connect.
PuppetDB

An Open Source project, PuppetDB collects data generated by Puppet. It enables advanced Puppet features like exported resources, and can be the foundation for other applications that use Puppet’s data.

Source: PuppetDB Overview <https://puppet.com/docs/puppetdb/latest>

Puppetfile

A Ruby file that contains references to Puppet modules.

See the Puppetfile spec: https://github.com/puppetlabs/r10k/blob/master/doc/puppetfile.mkd

Puppetserver
Puppet Server

An application that runs on the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) and provides the same services as the classic Puppet master application. It mostly does this by running the existing Puppet master code in several JRuby interpreters, but it replaces some parts of the classic application with new services written in Clojure.

Source: Puppet’s Services: Puppet Server

PXE
Preboot Execution Environment
An environment to boot computers using a network interface independently of data storage devices (like hard disks) or installed operating systems.
r10k
A code management tool that uses git branches to automate the development and deployment of Puppet code.
Rake
Ruby Make

A Make-like program implemented in Ruby.

Source: Rake Homepage

RAM
Random Access Memory
A form of computer data storage. A random access device allows stored data to be accessed in nearly the same amount of time for any storage location, so data can be accessed quickly in any random order.
Red Hat
Red Hat®
Red Hat®, Inc.

A collection of many different software programs, developed by Red Hat®, Inc. and other members of the Open Source community. All software programs included in Red Hat Enterprise Linux® are GPG signed by Red Hat®, Inc. to indicate that they were supplied by Red Hat®, Inc.

See also RHEL.

RHEL
Red Hat Enterprise Linux
A commercial Linux operating system produced by Red Hat®, Inc. RHEL is designed to provide an Enterprise-ready Linux distribution suitable to multiple target applications.
RPM
RPM Package Manager
A package management system. The name RPM is associated with the .rpm file format, files in this format, software packaged in such files, and the package manager itself. RPM was developed primarily for GNU/Linux distributions; the file format is the baseline package format of the Linux Standard Base.
RSA
An algorithm for public-key cryptography that is based on the presumed difficulty of factoring large integers, the factoring problem. RSA stands for Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir and Leonard Adleman, who first publicly described it in 1977.
Rsync

An open source utility that provides fast incremental file transfer.

Source: Rsync Home Page

Rsyslog

An open-source software utility used on UNIX and Unix-like computer systems for forwarding log messages in an IP network. It implements the basic syslog protocol, extends it with content-based filtering, rich filtering capabilities, flexible configuration options and adds features such as using TCP for transport.

Source: Wikipedia: Rsyslog

Ruby
A dynamic, reflective, general-purpose object-oriented programming language that combines syntax inspired by Perl with Smalltalk-like features. Ruby originated in Japan during the mid-1990s and was first developed and designed by Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto. It was influenced primarily by Perl, Smalltalk, Eiffel, and Lisp. Ruby supports multiple programming paradigms, including functional, object oriented, imperative and reflective. It also has a dynamic type system and automatic memory management; it is therefore similar in varying respects to Smalltalk, Python, Perl, Lisp, Dylan, Pike, and CLU.
RVM
Ruby Version Manager

command-line tool which allows you to easily install, manage, and work with multiple Ruby environments from interpreters to sets of gems.

Source: RVM Homepage

SCAP
Security Content Automation Protocol

A synthesis of interoperable specifications derived from community ideas.

Source: SCAP Homepage

SELinux

A Linux kernel security module that provides a mechanism for supporting access control security policies, including United States Department of Defense–style mandatory access controls (MAC).

Source: Wikipedia: Security-Enhanced Linux

Service Account
An account that is not for use by a human user but which still requires login access to a host.
SFTP
SSH File Transfer Protocol
A network protocol that provides file access, file transfer, and file management functionalities over any reliable data stream. It was designed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) as an extension of the Secure Shell protocol (SSH) version 2.0 to provide secure file transfer capability, but is also intended to be usable with other protocols.
SIMP
System Integrity Management Platform
A security framework that sits on top of RHEL or CentOS.
SIMP Compliance Engine

A SIMP component that adds the capability to evaluate your Puppet code for compilance with a policy as well as enforcing that the code enacts the specified policy.

See: SIMP Compliance Engine Repository

SIMP Server

The first server that is built in a SIMP environment and the server that is expected to be the nexus of control for the managed infrastructure.

See: Puppet Master

Site Manifest

Puppet always starts compiling with either a single manifest file or a directory of manifests that get treated like a single file. This main starting point is called the main manifest or site manifest. By default, the main manifest for a given environment is <ENVIRONMENTS DIRECTORY>/<ENVIRONMENT>/manifests.

Source: Puppet Documentation: Main manifest directory

Spectre

A vulnerability that affects modern microprocessors that perform branch prediction.

Source: Wikipedia: Spectre (security vulnerability)

SSG
SCAP Security Guide

A security policy written in a form of SCAP documents. The security policy created in SCAP Security Guide covers many areas of computer security and provides the best-practice solutions. The guide consists of rules with very detailed description and also includes proven remediation scripts, optimized for target systems. SCAP Security Guide, together with OpenSCAP tools, can be used for auditing your system in an automated way.

Source: OpenSCAP Homepage

See Also: SCAP

SSH
Secure Shell
An application for secure data communication, remote shell services, or command execution between networked computers. SSH utilizes a server/client model for point-to-point secure communication.
SSL
Secure Sockets Layer

The standard security technology for using PKI keys to provide a secure channel between two servers.

See also TLS.

SSSD
System Security Services Daemon

A daemon that provides access to identity and authentication remote resource through a common framework that can provide caching and offline support to the system.

Source: SSSD Homepage <https://pagure.io/SSSD/sssd>

STIG
DISA STIG
Defense Information Systems Agency Secure Technical Implementation Guide

Configuration standards for DOD IA and IA-enabled devices/systems.

Source: DISA IASE

Stunnel

A proxy designed to add TLS encryption functionality to existing clients and servers without any changes in the programs’ code.

Source: Stunnel Home Page

Sudo

sudo allows a permitted user to execute a command as the superuser or another user, as specified by the security policy. The invoking user’s real (not effective) user ID is used to determine the user name with which to query the security policy.

Source: The SUDO(8) man page

Sudosh

An application that acts as an echo logger to enhance the auditing of privileged activities at the command line of the operating system. Utilities are available for playing back sudosh sessions in real time.

Sudosh has been replaced by Tlog in the latest SIMP distributions.

Swappiness

Swappiness is a Linux kernel parameter that controls the relative weight given to swapping out of runtime memory, as opposed to dropping pages from the system page cache.

Source: Wikipedia: Swappiness

SYN cookies
syncookies

A technique used to resist SYN flood attacks.

Source: Wikipedia: SYN cookies

Syslog

A set of standards for sending log messages across the network.

Source: Wikipedia: syslog

tboot
Trusted Boot
See TXT.
TCPWrappers
TCP Wrappers

A host-based networking ACL system, used to filter network access to Internet Protocol servers on (Unix-like) operating systems such as Linux or BSD. It allows host or subnetwork IP addresses, names and/or ident query replies, to be used as tokens on which to filter for access control purposes.

Source: Wikipedia: TCP Wrappers

TFTP
Trivial File Transfer Protocol
A file transfer protocol generally used for automated transfer of configuration or boot files between machines in a local environment.
Tlog

Tlog is a terminal I/O recording and playback package suitable for implementing centralized user session recording.

Tlog has replaced Sudosh as the preferred terminal logging program in SIMP.

source: The Tlog home page

TLS
Transport Layer Security

A cryptographic protocol that provides network communications security. TLS and SSL encrypt the segments of network connections above the Transport Layer, using asymmetric cryptography for privacy and a keyed message authentication codes for message reliability.

See also SSL.

TPM
Trusted Platform Module

An international standard for a secure cryptoprocessor, which is a dedicated microcontroller designed to secure hardware by integrating cryptographic keys into devices.

Source: Wikipedia: Trusted Platform Module

TTY
A Unix command that prints to standard output the name of the terminal connected to standard input. The name of the program comes from teletypewriter, abbreviated “TTY”.
TXT
Trusted Execution Technology

A hardware feature designed to harden platforms from the emerging threats of hypervisor attacks, BIOS, or other firmware attacks, malicious root kit installations, or other software-based attacks. It increases protection by allowing greater control of the launch stack through a Measured Launch Environment (MLE) and enabling isolation in the boot process.

Source: Intel Trusted Execution Technology: White Paper

UEFI
Unified Extensive Firmware Interface

A specification that defines a software interface between an operating system and platform firmware. UEFI replaces the Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) firmware interface.

Source: Wikipedia: UEFI

umask

Umask is a command that determines the settings of a mask that controls how file permissions are set for newly created files. It also may refer to a function that sets the mask, or it may refer to the mask itself, which is formally known as the file mode creation mask. The mask is a grouping of bits, each of which restricts how its corresponding permission is set for newly created files. The bits in the mask may be changed by invoking the umask command.

Source: Wikipedia: umask

UUID
Universally Unique Identifier

A 128-bit unique value that is generally written as groups of hexadecimal digits separated by hyphens.

See also: UUIDGEN(1)

Vagrant

A tool for building complete development environments. With an easy-to-use workflow and focus on automation, Vagrant lowers development environment setup time, increases development/production parity, and makes the “works on my machine” excuse a relic of the past.

Source: Vagrant: About Vagrant

VirtualBox

A general-purpose full virtualizer for x86 hardware, targeted at server, desktop and embedded use.

Source: VirtualBox: About VirtualBox

VM
Virtual Machine
An isolated guest operating system installation running within a host operating system.
VNC
Virtual Network Computing
A graphical desktop sharing system that uses the remote framebuffer (RFB) protocol to control another computer remotely. It transmits the keyboard and mouse events from one computer to another, relaying the graphical screen updates back in the other direction, over a network.
WAN
Wide Area Network
A computer networking technology used to transmit ata over long distances, and between different Local Area Networks (LANs), Metropolitan Area Networks (MANs), and other localized computer networking architectures.
X
X11
X Windows
X Window System

The X Window System (X11, or shortened to simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on UNIX-like computer operating systems.

Source: Wikipedia: X Window System

X.509

An ITU-T standard for a public key infrastructure (PKI) and Privilege Management Infrastructure (PMI). X.509 specifies, amongst other things, standard formats for public key certificates, certificate revocation lists, attribute certificates, and a certification path validation algorithm.

Source: Wikipedia: X.509

YAML
YAML Ain’t Markup Language

A human friendly data serialization standard for all programming languages.

Source: YAML Homepage

YUM
Yellowdog Updater, Modified

A software installation tool for Linux. It is a complete software management system that works with RPM files. YUM is designed to be used over a network or the Internet.

See also RPM.