Email Address and Host Nomenclature

The Email Address

Email addresses represent the address for a person or organization on the Internet using electrion mail or Email. When sendin a message to someone electronically you must know their email address. A generic email address looks like the following: name@host

name

this is a unique identifier at the host site that the person or organization you are contacting possesses. Often it is a name or the login or userid of the corresponding account at the host site.

host

this is the Internet name for the host machine/site that the person or organization has an email account on. See below for host nomenclature

Some Examples

joe_smith@otter.monterey.edu (Joe Smith's address on First Class)
smith@ecn.purdue.edu (Joe's account at purdue University)
smith@vnet.ibm.com (Joe's account at IBM corporation)
smith@aol.com (Joe's account at American On-Line)

Host Nomenclature

The way in which a host machine is named on the internet follows a specific formula. The generic formula is as follows: name.subdomain1.subdomain2.domain
(where there can be many or no subdomains)

name

This is simply the unique name of the host machine

domain

Domain names are regulated on the Internet and they usually signify the type of business the owning organization does. Some examples are:

edu educational institution
com commercial business
gov government agency
net network provider

subdomain

Subdomains are specific to the institution.

Some Examples

www.monterey.edu (CSUMB's Web server)
rvl4.ecn.purdue.edu (Robot Vision Lab machine 4 at Purdue University)
otter.monterey.edu (CSUMB's FirstClass Email server)

ALL host names on the Internet are registered. Every machine that is on the Internet has not only a name but, also an equivalent number form. The name or equivalent number of a machine is called its IP address. IP stands for Internet Protocol and is half of the communications protocol called TCP/IP, that all computers on the Internet use as a common language to speak to each other.