Host

Notwithstanding the following paragraph, “Host” in this context is an Operating System (OS) running on a Server or Virtual Server.¹ The host is assigned a name, typically during the OS installation. That name is the “host name”, and it is by that name, most often², that a server is located on the network.

Host is another one of those terms with MANY meanings. Even within the scope of “Computing and Technology, within the Wikipedia disambiguation page for Host, the following links are defined.³

• Host (network), a computer participating in a computer network

  • hosts (file), mapping hostnames to IP addresses
  • host (Unix), a command
  • Hostname
  • Internet hosting service
  • Virtual host, hosting multiple domain names on a single server

• In hardware virtualization a host machine runs a virtual machine

• UOL HOST, a webhosting service

See Also

• Server
• Operating system

Footnotes

1. There are no Virtual Servers in our environment; one host operating system runs on one server. ↩

2. Sometimes a server is located only via its IP Address. That should be avoided whenever possible. ↩

3. At the time of this writing, but even if the list here is stale, you get the idea; “Host” is used many ways. ↩