DevOps Glossary.

The default Docker network driver that creates a private internal network on the host, enabling containers to communicate with each other via IP addresses or container names.

A series of automated steps — build, test, deploy — that code changes pass through to reach production environments reliably and repeatably.

Control groups — a Linux kernel feature that limits, accounts for, and isolates the CPU, memory, disk I/O, and network usage of process groups.

A lightweight, standalone, read-only package that includes application code, runtime, system tools, libraries, and settings needed to run software.

Kubernetes controller that provides declarative updates to Pods and ReplicaSets.

A tool for defining and running multi-container Docker applications using a YAML configuration file that specifies services, networks, and volumes.

A text document containing sequential instructions that Docker reads to automatically build a container image layer by layer.

GitHub’s built‑in CI/CD platform that runs workflows defined in YAML files.

A package manager for Kubernetes that bundles resources into reusable charts.

The practice of managing and provisioning computing infrastructure through machine-readable definition files rather than manual hardware configuration or interactive tools.

An API object that manages external access to services in a cluster, typically HTTP.

A data structure on a Linux filesystem that stores metadata about a file — permissions, ownership, timestamps, and pointers to data blocks — but not the filename itself.

A device or service that distributes incoming network traffic across multiple backend servers to ensure no single server bears too much demand, improving availability and responsiveness.

A Linux kernel feature that partitions system resources (PIDs, network, mounts, users) so that processes see an isolated view of the system.

A series of automated steps that process code from commit to deployment.

The smallest deployable unit in Kubernetes – a group of one or more containers that share storage/network resources.

Set User ID — a special permission bit that allows an executable to run with the privileges of the file owner rather than the user who launched it.

A JSON file that maps Terraform resources to real‑world objects, used to track changes.

The init system and service manager for modern Linux distributions, responsible for booting the system, managing services, and handling dependencies.

A reusable, versioned package of Terraform configuration files.

A filesystem service for Linux that implements a union mount, allowing files and directories of separate filesystems to be transparently overlaid into a single coherent tree.

A Docker mechanism for persisting data generated by containers, managed by Docker and stored outside the container's writable layer for durability.

A command-line firewall utility for Linux that uses policy chains to allow or block network traffic based on rules applied to packet headers.