Plain-English definitions for the acronyms and technical terms used throughout this guide.
Where a term is a general industry concept, the Learn more column links to
the relevant Wikipedia article. Terms specific to the Abilis CPX (or used by Abilis with a
special meaning) have no external link — the definition here is the authoritative one.
Throughout the guide, acronyms are wrapped in a dotted underline. Hover one to see its
expansion; click it to jump back to the entry on this page.
| Term | Stands for | Plain-English meaning | Learn more |
|---|
| Abilisphone | — | The Abilis mobile phone app (Android/iOS) that turns a smartphone into a registered extension on the Abilis CPX. Also marketed under the name "Virtual Office" in some Abilis materials. | — |
| ACL | Access Control List | An ordered list of allow/deny rules that decide which network traffic the Abilis lets through. Acts as the firewall. | Wikipedia → |
| AHCI | Advanced Host Controller Interface | The standard way modern computers talk to SATA hard drives and SSDs. Visible in the Disk Analyzer page. | Wikipedia → |
| AI | Analog Input | A sensor input that reads a continuous voltage or current (e.g. a temperature probe), as opposed to an on/off switch. Abilis automation context — not "Artificial Intelligence". | — |
| AIPT2 | Abilis IP Tunnel v2 | Abilis’s proprietary VPN protocol. Bundles multiple paths between two units for redundancy and combined throughput. | — |
| AO | Analog Output | An output that drives a continuous voltage or current (e.g. a 0–10 V signal to a motor controller). | — |
| ARP | Address Resolution Protocol | The mechanism a computer uses to find the hardware (MAC) address that owns a given IP address on the local network. | Wikipedia → |
| Term | Stands for | Plain-English meaning | Learn more |
|---|
| CDI | Called number, Inbound | The number that an incoming caller dialled. Used in CTI routing rules. | — |
| CDO | Called number, Outbound | The number that the call is being routed towards (after any rewrites). Used in CTI routing rules. | — |
| CGI | Calling number, Inbound | The caller’s own number as it arrived at the Abilis. Abilis telephony context — not "Common Gateway Interface". | — |
| CGO | Calling number, Outbound | The caller’s number as it will be presented to the called party (after any rewrites). | — |
| CF | CompactFlash | The removable flash storage card the Abilis uses as its main internal disk — it holds the configuration, audio messages, and firmware. "Load from CF" in the audio editor means a file already stored on the unit. | Wikipedia → |
| CLNUM | CTICL Numbers | An Abilis list type holding the phone numbers used by a CTI Cluster — i.e. the numbers exchanged between two linked Abilis PBXs so each side can reach the other's extensions. Per v9.0 reference manual ch6.11. | — |
| CLI | Command-Line Interface | The text-based interactive command interface to the Abilis. Reached over SSH/Telnet on the configured Control Port, or through the in-browser Control Port tab (which blocks configuration commands but allows queries and diagnostics). | Wikipedia → |
| CLUS | Cluster | An Abilis phone "technology" used to link two Abilis PBXs together so extensions on one are reachable from the other. | — |
| CPU | Central Processing Unit | The processor inside the Abilis. The Tools section reports load and temperature; sustained high CPU usually means too many concurrent streams (video, calls) for the hardware. | Wikipedia → |
| CSV | Comma-Separated Values | A plain-text spreadsheet format. Used by Abilis for bulk SMS, address-book import/export, and statistics export. | Wikipedia → |
| CTI | Computer Telephony Integration | Letting the computer (the Abilis) decide what happens to a call — routing, recording, IVR menus, etc. | Wikipedia → |
| CTIDISA | CTI DISA service | Abilis service that runs the auto-attendant / IVR (DISA) functions controlled by CTI rules. | — |
| CTIMIX | CTI Mix service | Abilis service that mixes audio streams — used for conference calls, music-on-hold, and announcements. | — |
| CTIP | CTI Phone | An Abilis phone "technology" that exposes an internal phone resource controlled by CTI — for example, an FXS port or an analog extension. | — |
| CTIVR | CTI Voice Recorder | Abilis service that records phone-call audio to disk for later playback or compliance. | — |
| Term | Stands for | Plain-English meaning | Learn more |
|---|
| DDNS | Dynamic DNS | A service that keeps a fixed hostname (like myoffice.example.com) pointed at a constantly-changing public IP address. Useful for offices on consumer broadband. | Wikipedia → |
| DHCP | Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol | The protocol that automatically hands out IP addresses (and gateway / DNS / lease-time settings) to devices joining a network. The Abilis can act as a DHCP server, client, or relay. | Wikipedia → |
| DNS | Domain Name System | The internet’s phone book: translates names like example.com into IP addresses. The Abilis can run a DNS server, relay, and filter. | Wikipedia → |
| Dial plan | — | The set of rules that decide what happens when a number is dialled — which extension rings, which trunk handles the call, what prefixes mean what. | Wikipedia → |
| DI | Digital Input | A sensor input that reads on/off (e.g. a door contact, a button, a relay status). Two states only. | — |
| DISA | Direct Inward System Access | An auto-attendant or IVR: a recorded greeting that lets callers press digits to reach a department, hear information, or connect to an extension. | — |
| DO | Digital Output | An output that switches on or off (e.g. driving a relay to turn on a light or unlock a door). | — |
| Dry contact | — | A pair of wires that simply close or open a circuit, with no voltage of their own. The way most door sensors and panic buttons signal an alarm. | — |
| DSL | Digital Subscriber Line | Internet over an ordinary copper telephone line. Includes ADSL, VDSL, etc. Often used as a backup link on the Abilis. | Wikipedia → |
| DTMF | Dual-Tone Multi-Frequency | The audible tones produced when you press digits on a phone keypad. Used by IVR menus to detect what the caller pressed. | Wikipedia → |
| Term | Stands for | Plain-English meaning | Learn more |
|---|
| Factory reset | — | Returning a device to the configuration it had when it left the factory, erasing all customisations. The Abilis has its own recovery procedure for this. | Wikipedia → |
| FAT32 | File Allocation Table (32-bit) | An old, widely-compatible disk format. Has a 4 GB single-file limit — relevant when downloading long recordings from the Abilis. | Wikipedia → |
| FEC | Forward Error Correction | A technique that adds redundant data to a transmission so the receiver can fix small errors without asking for a resend. Used by AIPT2 to keep voice quality high over lossy links. | Wikipedia → |
| Firmware | — | The software that runs inside an appliance (the Abilis itself, a camera, a phone). Updated through the Administration page. | Wikipedia → |
| FLASH | Hook flash | A very brief on-hook pulse used on analog phones to trigger a function (transfer, conference, hold). Often labelled R on European phones. | Wikipedia → |
| FMS | Fleet Management System (standard) | An open standard that lets a black-box device read data from a truck’s onboard computer (fuel use, RPM, distance, etc.). | Wikipedia → |
| FQDN | Fully Qualified Domain Name | A complete hostname that uniquely identifies a machine on the internet, e.g. mail.example.com (not just mail). | Wikipedia → |
| FRAGSIZE | Fragment size | An AIPT2 parameter that sets the maximum size of each tunnel packet. Lower values reduce loss on poor links; higher values reduce overhead. | — |
| Frames | — | The basic unit of data on an Ethernet network — a chunk of bytes wrapped with addressing and error-checking info. | Wikipedia → |
| FTP | File Transfer Protocol | The classic protocol for moving files to and from a server. The Abilis can act as an FTP server (e.g. for downloading recordings) or client. | Wikipedia → |
| FXS | Foreign Exchange Subscriber | The kind of port an analog phone plugs into — the side that supplies dial-tone and ring voltage. The Abilis presents FXS ports to your phones. | Wikipedia → |
| Term | Stands for | Plain-English meaning | Learn more |
|---|
| G.711 | — | The standard high-quality audio codec for VoIP and traditional telephone calls. Sounds best, uses the most bandwidth (~64 kbit/s). | Wikipedia → |
| G.729 | — | A compressed audio codec used when bandwidth is tight (~8 kbit/s). Slightly lower quality than G.711. | Wikipedia → |
| Geofence | — | A virtual boundary drawn on a map. The Abilis (in Automotive mode) can trigger an alert when a tracked vehicle enters or leaves it. | Wikipedia → |
| GiB | Gibibyte | 230 bytes (~1.074 GB). The strictly-binary cousin of "gigabyte"; used in disk-space displays. | Wikipedia → |
| GPT | GUID Partition Table | The modern partitioning scheme for hard disks (replaces MBR). Required for disks larger than 2 TB. | Wikipedia → |
| GPS | Global Positioning System | The satellite-based positioning system used by vehicle trackers to report location, speed, and direction. Abilis Automotive consumes GPS data from in-vehicle tracking modules. | Wikipedia → |
| GSM | Global System for Mobile communications | The 2G mobile-phone standard. The Abilis can use a GSM module for SMS sending/receiving and as a backup voice channel. | Wikipedia → |
| GUNUM | Group of user numbers | An Abilis list type that holds a group of user/extension numbers. | — |
| GwRes | Gateway Resource | The Abilis name for the logical resource that represents a connected automation gateway (a WIO, RIO, etc.). | — |
| Term | Stands for | Plain-English meaning | Learn more |
|---|
| IAX / IAX2 | Inter-Asterisk eXchange | A VoIP protocol native to Asterisk PBXs. Lighter than SIP; uses a single UDP port. Supported as one of the Abilis phone technologies. | Wikipedia → |
| INN | ISDN Numbers Normalized | An Abilis list type holding phone numbers in normalized (canonical) form — used by CTI routing, Virtual Office, and other internal call-handling, regardless of whether the call ever touches an ISDN line. Per v9.0 reference manual ch6.11. | — |
| IPCOS | IP Class of Service | An Abilis ACL setting that tags packets with a quality-of-service marker so downstream equipment can prioritise them. | — |
| IPR | IP Range | An Abilis list type that holds a range of IP addresses (start – end). | — |
| IPSEC | Internet Protocol Security | The standard suite for encrypting and authenticating IP traffic. Used as one of the encryption options inside an AIPT2 tunnel. | Wikipedia → |
| IPSRC | Source-IP restriction | An Abilis parameter on a service (HTTP, FTP, SSH…) that limits which source IP addresses are allowed to connect. | — |
| IPSRCLIST | Source-IP restriction list | Same idea as IPSRC, but pointing to a named list of addresses rather than a single value. | — |
| IPSRC-S | Source-IP restriction (HTTPS-side) | The HTTPS variant of IPSRC: restricts which source addresses may connect to the secure web interface. | — |
| IR | IP Range | An Abilis list type holding a single contiguous range of IP addresses. (Closely related to IPR.) | — |
| ISDN | Integrated Services Digital Network | A digital telephone-line standard used by older PBXs. The Abilis can terminate ISDN lines via add-on cards. | Wikipedia → |
| IVR | Interactive Voice Response | A phone menu that says "press 1 for sales, press 2 for support". On the Abilis, IVRs are built using DISA services. | Wikipedia → |
| Term | Stands for | Plain-English meaning | Learn more |
|---|
| LAN | Local Area Network | The internal network of an office or building — everything on the "inside" of the Abilis. | Wikipedia → |
| LDAP | Lightweight Directory Access Protocol | The standard protocol for querying a central directory of users, contacts, or address books. The Abilis can act as an LDAP server for shared address books. | Wikipedia → |
| Lease time | — | How long a DHCP-assigned IP address stays valid before the client must renew it. Configured in the DHCP server settings. | Wikipedia → |
| LOGIN-MODE | — | An Abilis CLI parameter that controls whether SSH/Telnet logins use legacy single-user mode or the modern user/password database. | — |
| LTE | Long-Term Evolution (4G) | The 4G mobile-data standard. The Abilis can use an LTE modem as a backup or primary internet link. | Wikipedia → |
| Lua | — | A small, fast scripting language. The Abilis Programs feature uses Lua for advanced automation logic. | Wikipedia → |
| Term | Stands for | Plain-English meaning | Learn more |
|---|
| MAC | Media Access Control | A unique hardware identifier burned into every network interface (the "MAC address" — six pairs of hex digits like 00:1A:2B:3C:4D:5E). The Abilis uses MAC addresses to identify cameras and automation devices during Discovery. | Wikipedia → |
| MBR | Master Boot Record | The legacy partitioning scheme for hard disks. Limited to 2 TB and 4 primary partitions; replaced by GPT. | Wikipedia → |
| MIX | — | An Abilis audio service that combines several streams (used by music-on-hold, conferencing, and the audio-message editor). | — |
| MoH | Music on Hold | The audio played to a caller while they wait on hold or in a queue. Configured in Tools → Audio Messages. | Wikipedia → |
| MSS | Maximum Segment Size | The largest payload a TCP segment can carry. Often "clamped" lower on PPPoE links to prevent fragmentation. | Wikipedia → |
| MTU | Maximum Transmission Unit | The largest packet size a network link can carry without fragmenting (1500 bytes on standard Ethernet). | Wikipedia → |
| Term | Stands for | Plain-English meaning | Learn more |
|---|
| OBD | On-Board Diagnostics | The standard diagnostic port found on cars and trucks. The Abilis (in Automotive mode) reads OBD data via an external interface. | Wikipedia → |
| OEM | Original Equipment Manufacturer | The company that actually manufactures a piece of hardware (often re-branded by a reseller). | Wikipedia → |
| OGM | Out Going Message | The Abilis CLI term for the welcome / answering audio played when a caller reaches voicemail (paired with END, the closing message). The Audio Messages GUI labels these as "Welcome" and "Goodbye". | — |
| OID | Object Identifier | A dotted-number address (e.g. 1.3.6.1.2.1.1.3.0) that names a specific value in an SNMP-managed device. | Wikipedia → |
| ONVIF | Open Network Video Interface Forum | The standard that lets IP cameras and recorders from different manufacturers work together. The Abilis videorecorder talks ONVIF to most cameras. | Wikipedia → |
| OPC | Operator Panel Control | The Abilis "switchboard" panel: a grid of cards that lets a receptionist see who is on a call and transfer calls by drag-and-drop. Abilis context — not the industrial "OLE for Process Control" standard. | — |
| OUT-IP | Outbound IP resource | An Abilis routing-table column that names which outgoing IP interface a packet should leave through. | — |
| Term | Stands for | Plain-English meaning | Learn more |
|---|
| PA | Public Address | An audio-broadcasting system that plays announcements through speakers across a building. The Abilis can drive a PA via its phone-call audio path. | Wikipedia → |
| PBR | Policy-Based Routing | Routing decisions based on something other than the destination IP — for example, sending all SIP traffic via a specific link. | Wikipedia → |
| PBX | Private Branch eXchange | A phone system inside an organisation that connects internal extensions to each other and links them collectively to outside phone lines or VoIP services. The Abilis CPX is a software-based PBX. | Wikipedia → |
| PLC | Programmable Logic Controller | The industrial cousin of an Arduino: a small computer that runs simple logic loops to control machinery. The Abilis Control Loops feature borrows ideas from PLC programming. | Wikipedia → |
| PoE | Power over Ethernet | Delivering electrical power to a device (phone, camera, access point) through the same cable that carries its data. | Wikipedia → |
| POTS | Plain Old Telephone Service | The traditional analog phone line — the one that gives you dial-tone over a copper pair. | Wikipedia → |
| PPP | Point-to-Point Protocol | A standard for carrying network traffic over a direct link between two devices. The basis of PPPoE. | Wikipedia → |
| PPPoE | PPP over Ethernet | The mechanism most DSL/fibre ISPs use to authenticate a customer connection. The Abilis dials PPPoE on behalf of an upstream modem in bridge mode. | Wikipedia → |
| PTZ | Pan-Tilt-Zoom | A camera with motors that rotate it horizontally (pan), tilt it up and down, and zoom optically — controlled remotely from software instead of being fixed in place. | Wikipedia → |
| Term | Stands for | Plain-English meaning | Learn more |
|---|
| REDIS | — | An Abilis AIPT2 tunnel parameter related to packet redistribution across paths. Note: not the open-source Redis database — despite the identical spelling. | — |
| RFC | Request For Comments | A numbered standards document published by the IETF that defines an internet protocol (e.g. RFC 5456 defines IAX2). | Wikipedia → |
| RAID | Redundant Array of Independent Disks | A storage scheme that combines multiple disks with redundancy so a single drive failure doesn't lose data. Used in this guide as an analogy for the Abilis's Forward Error Correction on AIPT2 tunnels. | Wikipedia → |
| RIO | Remote Input / Output | An Abilis-compatible wired automation module with digital and analog I/O lines. Connects over RS-485. | — |
| RTP | Real-time Transport Protocol | The protocol that carries the actual voice audio in a VoIP call (SIP sets up the call; RTP carries the sound). | Wikipedia → |
| RTSP | Real-Time Streaming Protocol | The standard way an IP camera advertises its live video stream so a recorder (the Abilis) can pull it. | Wikipedia → |
| RU | Range of users | An Abilis list type holding a contiguous range of user/extension numbers. | — |
| RVS | Remote Video Surveillance | The Abilis name for a wired automation module focused on video / camera integration. Closely related to RIO. | — |
| Term | Stands for | Plain-English meaning | Learn more |
|---|
| SD-WAN | Software-Defined WAN | The general industry term for sending traffic over multiple internet links and choosing which one to use per-flow. AIPT2 is the Abilis equivalent. | Wikipedia → |
| SIM | Subscriber Identity Module | The smartcard a cellular modem uses to identify itself to a mobile operator. In the Abilis, the SIM lives inside the UMTS-BOX or LTE-BOX module and gives the unit a phone number for SMS and voice. | Wikipedia → |
| SIP | Session Initiation Protocol | The dominant standard for setting up VoIP calls. Most IP phones, softphones, and VoIP providers speak SIP. | Wikipedia → |
| SMS | Short Message Service | Short text messages over the cellular network. The Abilis sends and receives SMS through its UMTS-BOX or LTE-BOX module — for alerts, 2FA forwarding, and bulk notification campaigns. | Wikipedia → |
| SMTP | Simple Mail Transfer Protocol | The standard protocol for sending email. The Abilis uses SMTP to send alarm emails and voicemail-to-email. | Wikipedia → |
| SNMP | Simple Network Management Protocol | A standard way for monitoring tools to query a device’s status (CPU, traffic, uptime, etc.). | Wikipedia → |
| Softphone | — | A phone that runs as software on a computer or mobile, instead of on a physical handset. Registers to the Abilis over SIP. | Wikipedia → |
| Sonoff | — | A widely-available consumer brand of Wi-Fi smart switches and sensors (made by Itead). The Abilis can integrate selected Sonoff devices. | — |
| SSH | Secure Shell | An encrypted command-line login protocol — the modern replacement for Telnet. Used to reach the Abilis CLI. | Wikipedia → |
| SSL | Secure Sockets Layer | The historical name for the encryption used by HTTPS. Now superseded by TLS, but the term "SSL" is still used colloquially. | Wikipedia → |
| STARTTLS | — | A way to upgrade a plain-text connection (SMTP, IMAP…) to an encrypted one mid-stream. An option when configuring outbound mail. | Wikipedia → |
| SUPER / SUPERUSER | — | The built-in top-privilege account on the Abilis — reserved for lockout recovery and low-level CLI tasks. "SUPER" and "SUPERUSER" refer to the same account. | — |
| SYSLOG | — | A standard format for system log messages. The Abilis can stream its logs to an external syslog collector. | Wikipedia → |
| Term | Stands for | Plain-English meaning | Learn more |
|---|
| T.38 | — | The standard for sending fax over an IP network reliably (instead of trying to push fax tones through a voice codec). | Wikipedia → |
| Throttled | — | Deliberately slowed down. Bandwidth shaping "throttles" a flow to keep it under a configured speed limit. | Wikipedia → |
| TLS | Transport Layer Security | The modern encryption that protects HTTPS and most other secure internet protocols. Successor to SSL. | Wikipedia → |
| TRFA | Traffic Analysis | The Abilis subsystem that records per-call and per-flow statistics for later reporting (Phone Statistics, accounting, etc.). Must be enabled to populate Recent Calls. | — |
| Trip time | — | How long a packet takes to reach a destination and have its reply come back — the same thing ping measures. | Wikipedia → |
| Trunk | — | (Telephony) A line that carries calls to/from an outside provider rather than to a single extension. (Networking) A switch port that carries multiple VLANs at once. | Wikipedia → |
| TTS | Text To Speech | Software that synthesises spoken audio from typed text. The Audio Messages tool uses TTS to generate a DISA/voicemail prompt without recording one with a microphone. | Wikipedia → |
| TUPR | Tuple | An Abilis NAT/ACL list type holding compound entries (e.g. IP+port pairs) rather than just single addresses. | — |