WhatIs

/fī(-ə)rwȯl mə-ˈshēn/

n. A dedicated gateway machine with special security precautions on it, used to service outside network connections and dial-in lines. The idea is to protect a cluster of more loosely administered machines hidden behind it from crackers. The typical firewall is an inexpensive micro-based UNIX box kept clean of critical data, with a bunch of modems and public network ports on it but just one carefully watched connection back to the rest of the cluster.

/fī(-ə)rwȯl kōd/

n. The code you put in a system (say, a telephone switch) to make sure that the users can't do any damage. Since users always want to be able to do everything but never want to suffer for any mistakes, the construction of a firewall is a question not only of defensive coding but also of interface presentation, so that users don't even get curious about those corners of a system where they can burn themselves.

/fī(-ə)r-ˌfī-tiŋ/

n. 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, esp. to get it out before deadline.

/fī(-ə)rbä-tᵊl/

n. A large, primitive, power-hungry active electrical device, similar in function to a FET but constructed out of glass, metal, and vacuum. Characterized by high cost, low density, low reliability, high-temperature operation, and high power dissipation. Sometimes mistakenly called a 'tube' in the U.S. or a 'valve' in England; another hackish term is glassfet.

/fiŋ-gər pȯintiŋ sin-ˌdrōm/

n. All-too-frequent result of bugs, esp. in new or experimental configurations. The hardware vendor points a finger at the software. The software vendor points a finger at the hardware. All the poor users get is the finger.

/fiŋ-gər/

[WAITS, via BSD UNIX]

1. n. A program that displays a particular user or all users logged on the system or a remote system. Typically shows full name, last login time, idle time, terminal line, and terminal location (where applicable). May also display a plan file left by the user.

2. vt. To apply finger to a username.

3. vt. By extension, to check a human's current state by any means.

"Food?"
"T!"
"OK, finger Lisa and see if she's idle."

/fīn/

[WPI] adj. Good, but not good enough to be cuspy. The word 'fine' is used elsewhere, of course, but without the implicit comparison to the higher level implied by cuspy.

/fə-ˈnā-gəls lȯ/

n. The generalized or 'folk' version of Murphy's Law, fully named "Finagle's Law of Dynamic Negatives" and usually rendered "Anything that can go wrong, will". One variant favored among hackers is "The perversity of the Universe tends towards a maximum" (but see also Hanlon's Razor).

/fil-tər/

[orig. UNIX, now also in MS-DOS]

n. A program that processes an input data stream into an output data stream in some well-defined way, and does no I/O to anywhere else except possibly on error conditions; one designed to be used as a stage in a 'pipeline' (see plumbing).

/film ət i-ˈle-vən/

[MIT: in parody of TV newscasters]

Used in conversation to announce ordinary events, with a sarcastic implication that these events are earth-shattering.

"ITS crashes; film at 11."

"Bug found in scheduler; film at 11."