[Term of the Day]: Universal Naming Convention

Term of the Day

"Universal Naming Convention"

What is UNC?

Universal naming convention, also known as uniform naming convention, is a standard for identifying servers, printers and other resources in a network, which originated in the Unix community.

In the world of networks and network resources, there are various ways to identify resources. Within a single environment, network administrators are often forced to understand (and use) various methods for naming and finding the resources they need.

The idea behind UNC is to provide a format so that each shared resource can be identified with a unique address. UNC names adhere to the following format:

\\<server name>\<share point>\<path to resource> where:

<server name> refers to the device name as defined in the network setup,

<share point> refers to the name of the shared resource, as defined during giving the share-permission.

<path to resource> refers to the directory name and filename inside the shared resource.