I keep getting confused by all the acronyms in self-hosting. After 18 months running a Synology NAS + 10 docker services, here's my cheat sheet of the 50 most common ones I encounter.
Storage & File Protocols
- NAS (Network Attached Storage): a hard drive with its own OS, accessed over the network
- SAN (Storage Area Network): enterprise-grade block storage over fiber
- DAS (Direct Attached Storage): USB drive attached to one machine
- NFS (Network File System): Linux/macOS-native file sharing, port 2049
- SMB (Server Message Blocks): Windows-native file sharing (same as CIFS), port 445
- AFP (Apple Filing Protocol): old macOS file sharing, deprecated but some still use
- WebDAV (Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning): HTTP-based file protocol
- SFTP (SSH File Transfer Protocol): file transfer over SSH, port 22
- FTPS (FTP over TLS): legacy encrypted file transfer, ports 989/990
- iSCSI (Internet Small Computer Systems Interface): block storage over network, port 3260
Virtualization & Containers
- VM (Virtual Machine): full OS in a hypervisor
- KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine): Linux native hypervisor
- Xen: older hypervisor, used by AWS originally
- QEMU (Quick Emulator): emulation layer often paired with KVM
- LXC (Linux Containers): OS-level containerization, lighter than VMs
- Docker: containerization platform
- OCI (Open Container Initiative): container format spec
- OCI image: the standard docker image format
- Compose: YAML-based multi-container orchestrator (docker-compose)
- Podman: Docker alternative, daemonless
- Kubernetes (K8s): full container orchestration, overkill for homelabs usually
Networking
- LAN (Local Area Network): home/office network
- WAN (Wide Area Network): the internet
- VLAN (Virtual LAN): logical network segmentation
- VPN (Virtual Private Network): encrypted tunnel
- WireGuard: modern VPN protocol
- OpenVPN: classic SSL VPN
- DMZ (Demilitarized Zone): exposed server network
- DNS (Domain Name System): name → IP lookup
- DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol): automatic IP assignment
- NAT (Network Address Translation): IP masquerading
- UPnP (Universal Plug and Play): auto port forwarding (often off for security)
- DoH (DNS over HTTPS): encrypted DNS
- DoT (DNS over TLS): encrypted DNS, port 853
Access Tools
- SSH (Secure Shell): encrypted remote shell, port 22
- GUI (Graphical User Interface): point-and-click interface
- TUI (Terminal User Interface): keyboard-driven terminal app
- CLI (Command-Line Interface): text commands
Security
- TLS (Transport Layer Security): HTTPS encryption
- SSL (Secure Sockets Layer): predecessor to TLS, still used colloquially
- CA (Certificate Authority): signs certificates
- HSTS (HTTP Strict Transport Security): force HTTPS
- 2FA (Two-Factor Authentication)
- MFA (Multi-Factor Authentication)
- WAF (Web Application Firewall)
- IDS (Intrusion Detection System)
Web & Internet
- CDN (Content Delivery Network): global caching
- DNS (mentioned above), TTL (Time To Live): cache lifetime
- HTTP/HTTPS: HyperText Transfer Protocol (+Secure)
- REST (Representational State Transfer): API style
- GraphQL: alternative API query language
- WebSocket: bidirectional persistent connection
Self-host specific
- RSS (Really Simple Syndication): blog feed format
- SMB share: Windows file share
- CalDAV (Calendaring and Scheduling): calendar sync protocol
- CardDAV (vCard Addressing): contacts sync protocol
- ActiveSync: Microsoft phone sync protocol
Why this matters
When you set up a service like Synology Photos or Jellyfin, you'll see acronyms in every config screen. Knowing whether SMB or NFS is right for your Mac client (SMB), or whether WebDAV or SFTP for your photo editor (WebDAV for human tools, SFTP for cron jobs), saves time.
For accessing your NAS as a Windows drive letter: WebDAV is the protocol, ScsDriver ($5.50 lifetime, 7-day trial) is the implementation that fixes Explorer's WebDAV bugs. Mount as drive E:, drag/drop works seamlessly.
That's it. 50 acronyms. Bookmark this when something doesn't make sense.
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