Understanding Web Server
A Web Hosting Article Contributed by Minakshi Mathur
Understanding Web Server
A Web server is a server which is used to host Web sites and publish Web content such as Web documents and files that make up Web pages. Each website that you visit is actually hosted on a Public Web server. After a Website or any kind of Web content is published on a Public Web server it is available on the Internet for public viewing.
Publishing a Website on a Web Server
To publish a Website on a Public Web server, you need to obtain a unique domain name called DNS (Domain name Server) for the site. DNS internally maps your Website name to a unique IP Address.
While developing a Website, you need a computer with a Web server installed on it. A Web server is generally installed on a computer, which is connected to the Internet.
Examples of a Web Server
Different type of Web Servers are available for Website development and publishing Websites and Web content. Some of the commonly used Web servers are:
1. IIS (Microsoft Internet Information Service): Can be used to host your internet and intranet Websites. Intranet websites are the websites that are developed to be used by an organization internally. Their address does not include www (World Wide Web) protocol. For example an intranet website address can be http://huestechnologies.com.
IIS Comes packaged with Windows Server 2000, Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP.
2. PWS (Microsoft Personal Web Server): Can only be used for development purposes on personal computers. This is a scaled down version of IIS especially designed for development and educational purposes.
3. Apache Web Server: Can be used on any platform such as UNIX, Linux and Windows. This is an open source product and is reliable, secure and portable.
How a Web Server Works
To understand a Web server, it is important to understand how it works. When a user types a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) address to a Web browser, the following sequence of steps take place.
1. The browser used on your computer splits the URL into three parts, protocol, server name and the file name. For example a URL www.Huestechnologies.com/index.htm has the protocol called http (Hypertext Transfer Protocol), Server name called www.Huestechnologies.com and the file name called index.htm.
2. The browser communicates with the DNS Server and translates its name to its IP address.
3. The browser establishes a connection with the DNS server using its IP address on one of its port, generally port 80, which is reserved for communicating with website clients and sending requests to other Web servers.
4. The HTTP protocol sends a GET request to the server with the help of the Web browser for the file. A server request can be of two main types GET and POST. A GET request sends the form content to the server as a part of the URL but POST request updates the content of Web server by submitting forms.
5. The Server sends back the requested file.
6. The browser reads the HTML text from the file and displays the file on your computer.
