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Concepts and glossary

This page is for readers who are not developers, or are just starting: every term you meet in these docs, explained in plain language.

Basics​

  • API: a way for a program to ask Arianet for something without the panel: "create a server", "give me my invoices". The program sends an HTTP request and gets the answer back as JSON.
  • Endpoint: one address of an API together with its method, such as GET /servers (list servers) or POST /servers (create a server). Methods: GET reads, POST creates or performs, PUT / PATCH change, DELETE removes.
  • JSON: a simple text format of keys and values, like {"name": "web-1"}.
  • OpenAPI: a machine-readable file that describes every endpoint of an API. Tools build interactive docs or client code from it (API reference).
  • CLI: the arianet command-line program; it does what the panel does, by typing commands in a terminal (CLI).
  • Terraform: a tool that describes infrastructure (servers, networks, firewalls) in text files and builds exactly that: "infrastructure as code" (Terraform).

Account and access​

  • API token: a password made for programs. Instead of a username and password, a program identifies itself with a token. Treat it like a password (Authentication).
  • Scope: what a token is allowed to do. A token with only cloud:servers:read can see servers but cannot create or delete anything.
  • Wallet: your account balance. Orders and hourly billing are charged to it; when it runs short you get a 402.
  • Project and label: ways to organise cloud resources, for example all of one customer's servers in one project, or the label env=prod on production servers.

Location​

  • Region: a geographic area with its own install of a service, such as iran-1. Some APIs pick it with the Arianet-Region header.
  • Datacenter: the building and hardware your server actually runs in. Each region has one or more datacenters, each with a code such as ovh or thr-1.

Servers and compute​

  • Cloud server / VPS: a virtual computer with its own operating system, connected to the internet. Cloud servers are billed by the hour, and their resources (disks, networks, IPs) are managed separately.
  • Dedicated server: a whole physical server that is yours alone; billed monthly, delivered in several steps.
  • Plan: the size of a server: CPU cores, memory, disk and price.
  • Image: a ready operating system a server is installed from, such as ubuntu-24.04.
  • cloud-init (user data): a script that runs the first time a server boots, for example to install software automatically.
  • Rescue: the server boots a temporary operating system so you can repair its main disk.
  • Asynchronous operation (action): work that takes seconds or minutes (like creating a server). The API answers "started" at once and you ask for the state later.

Storage and backups​

  • Volume: separate storage attached to a server; it can be detached and attached to another server.
  • Snapshot: a full picture of a server's disk at one moment, to create a new server from it or go back to it.
  • Backup: automatic daily copies of a server, kept for a limited time.

Networking​

  • Primary, floating and elastic IPs: the primary IP is the server's own public address. Floating and elastic IPs are kept independently of any server, so you can move them from one server to another.
  • Private network: a network only your servers are on, so they talk to each other without crossing the internet.
  • Firewall: rules that decide which traffic reaches a server, for example only ports 22 and 443.
  • Load balancer: spreads incoming traffic over several servers, so the site stays up when one of them fails.
  • NAT gateway: lets servers without a public IP reach the internet.

Hosting and SMS​

  • Shared hosting: website hosting on a server shared with others, with a control panel (cPanel or DirectAdmin), email, databases and DNS.
  • Reseller hosting: an account that can create and sell hosting accounts to its own customers.
  • DNS: the internet's phone book; it says which IP your domain name points to.
  • SMS line: the number messages are sent from; a shared line or your own dedicated line.
  • Webhook: an address in your application that Arianet calls when something happens (an SMS is delivered, for example).

Billing​

  • Hourly billing: you pay for every hour a resource exists; a month counts at most 730 hours.
  • Idempotency: the guarantee that sending an order again after a dropped connection does not run or charge it twice (details).
  • Rate limit: the cap on requests per minute or hour; over it you get a 429 and should wait a little.