UK Car Company now owned by BMW (a German car company), manufacturer of good cars like the MGF and bad cars like the Metro, Maestro and Montego

Rover is also the name of the large white balloon-shaped security robot in the most excellent TV show The Prisoner. Rover's appearance is usually presaged by a shot of Control, and the Controller using the allcall to announce "Orange Alert. Orange Alert."

A Network Management System (NMS) developed by the Merit NOC (www.merit.edu), Rover (more properly, Internet Rover) uses two daemons to run specific tests on a given list of network nodes. The first daemon is pingd. This provides a single test - a simple ICMP Echo (more generally known as a "ping", hence the name) to the target nodes. The second, more complex, daemon is called InetRoverd. This daemon will test any given TCP port (with specific, named tests for telnet, smtp, named, and gopher), as well as running a disk usage check against servers listed in the hostfile, and checking to see if a given file exists on those servers. If any of the tests fail, Rover will throw an alert notice onto its display (which runs in a simple vt100 terminal) and make an entry in its logfile. The list of nodes is given in a plaintext file, with each node having a line which documents its IP address, a short description of the node, and what test (or tests) should be run against that node.

Given the simplicity of configuration combined with its ability to run in text-only environments, it isn't surprising that Rover is so popular. When one combines these benefits with the fact that it is freely available, it is nearly the perfect NMS. The only major drawbacks are the lack of SNMP polling ability, and the fact that each hostfile has a maximum size of 2000 entries. The reason for this is that the daemons continually iterate over the hostfile, and anything over 2000 entries would cause an unacceptable delay in reporting problems on the network.

Rov"er (?), n. [D. roover a robber. See Rove, v. i.]

1.

One who practices robbery on the seas; a pirate.

Yet Pompey the Great deserveth honor more justly for scouring the seas, and taking from the rovers 846 sail of ships. Holland.

2.

One who wanders about by sea or land; a wanderer; a rambler.

3.

Hence, a fickle, inconstant person.

4. Croquet

A ball which has passed through all the hoops and would go out if it hit the stake but is continued in play; also, the player of such a ball.

5. Archery (a)

Casual marks at uncertain distances.

Encyc. Brit.

(b)

A sort of arrow

. [Obs.]

All sorts, flights, rovers, and butt shafts. B. Jonson.

At rovers, at casual marks; hence, at random; as, shooting at rovers. See def. 5 (a) above. Addison.

Bound down on every side with many bands because it shall not run at rovers. Robynson (More's Utopia).

 

© Webster 1913.

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