proxy server
A process providing a cache of
items available on other servers which are presumably slower
or more expensive to access.
This term is used particularly for a World-Wide Web server
which accepts URLs with a special prefix. When it receives
a request for such a URL, it strips off the prefix and looks
for the resulting URL in its local cache. If found, it
returns the document immediately, otherwise it fetches it from
the remote server, saves a copy in the cache and returns it to
the requester. The cache will usually have an expiry
algorithm which flushes documents according to their age,
size, and access history.
Compare proxy gateway.
(1995-02-14)
Source: The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03)
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