Overview of network services

Last revision July 28, 2004

There are many ways to classify network services. There are distinctions between services that allow communication among people, services that allow sharing of resources among people (and their computers), and services that are essential for the computers to work cooperatively on the network, but which users do not directly see, except perhaps to configure. It is also useful, when describing services, to distinguish between a computer that provides a service, usually called a "server", and another computer (and user) that uses the service, called a "client". Finally, when talking about services, there are often differences in how services are provided, depending upon the operating system used by the computer, such as Unix or Linux, Mac OS (Macintosh), or Microsoft Windows.

These pages categorize network services primarily according to function, with differences among operating systems noted where appropriate. They also indicate which services are provided locally on the Earth Sciences network and the conditions or restrictions on those services.

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