Glossary
Plain-language definitions of the terms used across the XDP.NETWORK docs — XDP, eBPF, baselines, rate limiting, lists, and the metrics API.
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Short, plain-language definitions of the terms you meet in the console and in these docs, listed alphabetically. For the packet-path terms in context, see How XDP filtering works.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Alerter | A rule that notifies you when a condition is met, such as an attack starting. |
| Amplification attack | A flood that abuses third-party servers to turn a small request into a much larger reply aimed at you. |
API key (osk_) | The secret token that authenticates a caller to the metrics API; printed by openshield key and stored server-side by the console. |
| Baseline | The normal level of your server's traffic, used as the reference for spotting anomalies. |
| Blacklist | A list of IPs or ranges whose traffic is always dropped. |
| Bloom filter | A compact probabilistic data structure that answers "is this item in the set?" very fast, with rare false positives. |
| bps | Bits per second — the bandwidth your traffic is using. |
| eBPF | A Linux kernel technology for running small, sandboxed programs inside the kernel; XDP programs are eBPF. |
| L3/L4 vs L7 | L3/L4 attacks flood the network and transport layers (packets, connections); L7 attacks target the application itself (HTTP requests). |
| Metrics API | The small HTTP endpoint the agent exposes (GET /metrics, GET /health) so the console can read live stats. |
| Mitigation | The active dropping or shaping of attack traffic once it is detected. |
| Origin | Your actual server, sitting behind the protection layer. |
| pps | Packets per second — the packet rate of your traffic. |
| Profile | A tuned mitigation preset selected with the profile config key (e.g. profile: game-udp); openshield profile list shows the installed presets. |
| Spike threshold | How far traffic must rise above the baseline before it is treated as an attack. |
| Token bucket | A rate-limiting algorithm that permits bursts up to a bucket size, then caps traffic at a steady refill rate. |
| Whitelist | A list of IPs or ranges whose traffic is always allowed through. |
| XDP | eXpress Data Path — a Linux hook that runs an eBPF program in the NIC driver, dropping packets before the kernel allocates resources to them. |