# Datacenter proxy glossary

> Datacenter proxy glossary: 32 terms from ASN, BGP and RDAP to SOCKS5, /24 subnets and geofeeds, in plain English. No KYC, crypto-paid dedicated IPv4.

- URL: https://rackproxies.com/glossary/
- Last updated: 2026-10-19
- Publisher: RackProxies (https://rackproxies.com)

The network and proxy words used on RackProxies pages, each explained in one or two plain sentences.

**Quick answer — What does this datacenter proxy glossary cover?**

This datacenter proxy glossary defines 32 terms used on RackProxies pages, from network basics (ASN, BGP, RIR, RDAP, IXP) to proxy words (dedicated, static, SOCKS5, CONNECT). RackProxies is a dedicated datacenter proxy provider: IPv4 addresses rented per IP for 30 days, from $1.29 per IP, paid in crypto with no KYC.

## Which network and proxy terms should I know?

**/24 subnet** — A block of 256 consecutive IPv4 addresses that share their first three numbers, such as 203.0.113.0 to 203.0.113.255. Many websites group or rate-limit traffic by /24, which is why some users ask for IPs spread over several subnets.

**Allowlist (IP allowlist)** — A list of IP addresses that a service accepts; requests from any other address are refused. Partners put your rented IP on their allowlist; you can also put up to 10 of your own IPs on your RackProxies allowlist to use the proxy without a password.

**ASN (autonomous system number)** — The number that identifies a network on the internet, such as a hosting company, carrier or home internet provider. IP databases use the ASN that announces an address to label it hosting, business or residential.

**Bandwidth** — The amount of data a connection can carry per second, or, in proxy pricing, the amount of traffic billed. RackProxies bills per IP, not per GB, under a fair-use policy.

**BGP (Border Gateway Protocol)** — The routing protocol networks use to tell each other which IP blocks they can reach. A block is reachable on the internet when an ASN announces it over BGP.

**Carrier hotel** — A building where many networks and carriers meet and connect to each other, usually with colocation space for rent. Well-known examples are 60 Hudson Street in New York and One Wilshire in Los Angeles.

**Colocation** — Renting space, power and cooling for your own servers inside a datacenter run by someone else. PeeringDB lists colocation facilities with the networks present in each.

**CONNECT method** — The HTTP request a client sends to a proxy to open a tunnel to a target host and port. HTTPS traffic travels encrypted inside that tunnel, so the proxy sees the hostname but not the page content.

**Datacenter proxy** — A proxy whose exit IP belongs to a hosting or network operator in a commercial datacenter, not to a home internet provider. IP databases label it hosting.

**Dedicated proxy** — A proxy IP assigned to one customer for the length of a rental. Dedicated does not mean never used before: an address can have earlier users.

**Exit IP** — The IP address that the target website sees when your request leaves the proxy.

**Fair use** — A rule that lets a provider limit use that harms its network, partners or other customers, without counting traffic in GB.

**Geofeed (RFC 8805)** — A public CSV file in which a network states the country, region and city of each of its IP ranges. Many geolocation databases read geofeeds, but they can still disagree with them.

**IP geolocation** — The estimate a database makes of where an IP address is. For datacenter IPs it can point to a different city, or even a different country, from the datacenter that announces the address.

**IPv4** — The 32-bit version of the Internet Protocol, with about 4.3 billion addresses written as four numbers, such as 203.0.113.24. RackProxies rents IPv4 only.

**IPv4 exhaustion** — The running out of unassigned IPv4 addresses. The central IANA pool ran out in 2011 and most regional registries followed, so IPv4 is now traded and leased between networks.

**IPv6** — The 128-bit version of the Internet Protocol, with a practically unlimited number of addresses. Many websites still reach visitors over IPv4 only. IPv6 proxies are not sold by RackProxies yet.

**IXP (internet exchange point)** — A shared switching platform where networks connect to exchange traffic directly. On 19 October 2026, PeeringDB listed IX.br São Paulo with 1,869 connected networks and DE-CIX Frankfurt with 1,019.

**Latency** — The delay before data arrives, usually measured as a round trip in milliseconds. Distance sets a floor: about 1 ms of round trip per 100 km of fiber.

**PeeringDB** — A free, public database where networks, exchanges and datacenters publish where they are present and how they connect. RackProxies city pages are built from it.

**Port** — A number that identifies a service on an IP address, such as 443 for HTTPS. A proxy line includes the port the proxy listens on.

**Proxy server** — A server that forwards your requests to a target, so the target sees the proxy's IP address instead of yours.

**RDAP (Registration Data Access Protocol)** — The registries' modern lookup service for IP blocks, ASNs and domains, returning structured JSON. It replaces WHOIS and shows who holds an address block.

**Residential proxy** — A proxy whose exit IP belongs to a home internet connection, reached through a device whose owner takes part in a proxy network. RackProxies does not sell residential proxies.

**RIR (regional internet registry)** — One of the five organizations that assign IP addresses and ASNs: ARIN, RIPE NCC, APNIC, LACNIC and AFRINIC. Their public delegation files show how many addresses each country holds.

**Rotating proxy** — A proxy that gives a new exit IP on each request or after a set time. RackProxies IPs are static: they do not rotate during a rental.

**Round-trip time (RTT)** — The time a packet takes to reach a destination and for the answer to come back. Light in fiber covers about 200 km per millisecond, so RTT in ms is at least the distance in km divided by 100.

**Shared proxy** — A proxy IP used by several customers at the same time. It is cheaper than a dedicated IP, but other users' traffic can affect how sites treat it.

**SOCKS5** — A proxy protocol that forwards TCP connections for any application, not only web traffic. It can also carry UDP in its specification, but proxy services do not always support that.

**Static IP** — An IP address that stays the same over time. A rented datacenter IP is static for the whole 30-day rental.

**Transit** — A paid service in which a larger network carries a smaller network's traffic to the rest of the internet. Hosting networks buy transit from one or more carriers.

**UDP** — A connectionless internet protocol used by DNS, voice, video and games. Most HTTP proxies carry only TCP; UDP needs a protocol that supports it.

## Where are these terms used on the site?

Most terms appear on the [datacenter city pages](https://rackproxies.com/cities/), which list PeeringDB facilities, exchanges and distances, and on the [country pages](https://rackproxies.com/countries/), which use RIR data. The [check a datacenter IP guide](https://rackproxies.com/guides/check-a-datacenter-ip/) shows RDAP and ASN lookups in practice, and the [SOCKS5 vs HTTP guide](https://rackproxies.com/guides/socks5-vs-http-proxies/) compares the two protocols. Questions not answered here are in the [FAQ](https://rackproxies.com/faq/).

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RackProxies: RackProxies is a dedicated datacenter proxy provider: IPv4 addresses rented per IP for 30 days, paid in crypto with no ID upload. Pages cover 22 countries and 34 datacenter cities with public network data.