CDN Glossary
This glossary explains common terms used in CDNLite and private CDN operations.
Self-Hosted CDN
A CDN operated by your own team rather than consumed as a fully managed public service. CDNLite is a self-hosted CDN control plane and edge platform.
Private CDN
A CDN-style delivery layer for a company, lab, hosting provider, or internal platform team. A private CDN usually emphasizes control, private routing, isolated operations, and ownership of logs and policy.
CDN Control Plane
The API, dashboard, database, and jobs that manage domains, DNS records, origins, cache rules, WAF rules, SSL, edges, analytics, and audit logs.
Edge Proxy
The reverse proxy close to users or applications. CDNLite uses OpenResty/Lua as the edge proxy runtime.
GeoDNS
DNS routing that can answer differently based on geography, topology, or health. CDNLite uses DNSGeo with PowerDNS to support private edge routing.
WAF Rules
Web application firewall rules that inspect requests and allow, block, or log traffic based on policy.
Cache Purge
An operation that removes cached content from the edge so future requests fetch fresh content from the origin.
Origin Health Checks
Checks that determine whether an origin server is healthy enough to receive traffic.