Thursday, September 10, 2009

Tech Article Summary: How Web Servers Work

Article: How Web Servers Work

Summary:
This article explains the basics of how web servers work; how the web pages we read are delivered to us. At the very basic level, every time we type in the url to a page, our computer sends a request to a server for the webpage, the server processes it, and sends the page over.
The process can be further broken down,
1) The web page breaks down the web address into three parts: the protocal, server name, and file name.
2) The browser communicates with the name server, which translates the server name into an IP address.
3) The browser then makes a connection with a server at the IP address, and sends a request for the specific file.
4) The server then sends the HTML code for the page to your browser, which formats the page accordingly and displays it to your screen.
The entire process utilizes the internet, which is basicaly a large network of computers linked together through ISP (Internet Service Providers) Networks. Servers, which get the request for the page and send the HTML code are machines conncected via internet that provide services to us clients. When we request a page we type in the wesite which has the domain name in it This is basically the website name that we can easily remember and type in. In order to communicate with a server, the address sent to it must be converted to an IP address, which is an address that consists of digits,and is difficult to remember, which is why the server does the converting. The request is sent to the server through the appropriate port; each server has numbered ports that are used for diferetn services the server offers. Once one is connected t a server, it uses a protocol (ie. http) to access the service needed. The protocal is basically the code used to communicate with the service the client is trying to access.
After all these processes ahve been completed, the request gos through and viola!...the page you typed the address for appears in a matter of seconds. =)

No comments:

Post a Comment