English

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Etymology

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From meta- +‎ channel.

Noun

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metachannel (plural metachannels)

  1. (computing) A transmission channel used for event notifications rather than actual data.
    • 2010, Oswald Campesato, Kevin Nilson, Web 2.0 Fundamentals, page 572:
      Bayeux contains three types of channels: metachannels, service, and normal channels. Metachannels are created by the Bayeux server. Metachannels give information about events, such as handshake errors, connection, disconnection, and reconnection.
    • 2015, Jon C. Snader, VPNs Illustrated: Tunnels, VPNs, and IPsec, pages 8–25:
      The cipher_ID and digest_ID are the OpenSSL cipher and digest types—Blowfish and SHA1 by default—that this node will use for the data channel and also to encrypt the metachannel.