Howstuffworks.com's "How Web Servers and the Internet Work"

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How Web Servers and the Internet Work
by Marshall Brain ×9Ô€(6ÿÕ~P;ÙÂÿÿ±È6Bj9Ö˜ÿÿÿ€Øm6Bj9Õ(9Ô°9Õ=ÿäÒT9Ôð6 ó°€€€9ÔÐ6 €€€Ù.€6 6Bj9Õ,9Ôðˆ@ïvT±È/web-server.htm>

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Have you ever wondered about the mechanisms that delivered this page to you? Chances are that you are sitting at a computer right now viewing this page in a Browser: When you clicked on the link for this page or typed in its URL, what happened behind the scenes to bring this page onto your screen? If you've ever been curious about the whole process, or if you have ever wanted to know some of the details that allow you to surf the Internet, then this edition of How Stuff Works will be a real eye opener for you. You will learn about the Internet and how web browsers and web servers use it to bring pages into your home, school or office. So let's get started!

The Basic Process
Let's say that you are sitting at your computer surfing the web and you get a call from a friend who says, "I just read a great article! Type in this URL and check it out! It's at ÿÿ€9Ôinksÿäá~ 9Ô s-biÙ.|ØmO9Õ=K9Ô@D€Ù6Tpe=39Ôp'¶ôÿå=049Ôp6 ÿå (mrks9Ôpž>×9Ô€(6ÿÕ~P;ÙÂÿÿ±È6Bj9Ö˜ÿÿÿ€Øm6Bj9Õ(9Ô°9Õ=ÿäÒT9Ôð6 ó°€€€9ÔÐ6 €€€Ù.€6 6Bj9Õ,9Ôðˆ@ïvT±È/web-server.htm". You type that URL in to your browser and press return. Magically, no matter where in the world that URL lives, the page pops up on your screen!

At the most basic level possible, the following diagram shows what happened:

Your browser formed a connection to a web server, requested a page and received it. If you want to get into a bit more detail, here are the basic steps that occurred behind the scenes:

The browser broke the URL into 3 parts: 1) The protocol ("http"), 2) the server name ("www.howstuffworks.com"), and 3) the file name ("web-server.htm").
The browser communicated with a name server to translate the server name "www.howstuffworks.com" into an IP Address that it can use to connect to the server machine.
The browser then formed a connection to the server at that IP address on port 80.
Following the HTTP protocol, the browser sent a GET request to the server asking for the file "web-server.htm".
The server returned the HTML text for the web page to the browser. The browser read the HTML tags and formatted the page onto your screen.

If you've never seen it before, that's a lot of vocabulary! To understand this whole process in detail, you need to learn about IP addresses, ports, protocols, etc. The following articles will lead you through a complete explanation!

Go to the next article about How Web Servers and the Internet work or pick from the table of contents:

Introduction to How Web Servers and the Internet Work You are here
How the Internet Works
Clients and Servers
How IP Addresses Work
How Name Servers Work
How Ports Work
How Protocols Work
Putting it all Together
How Web Servers Work
Links

If you are thinking about creating a web site and are looking for a company that can reserve your domain name or host your site, please click here. See also Question 222 for information on the entire process!

×9Ô€(6ÿÕ~P;ÙÂÿÿ±È6Bj9Ö˜ÿÿÿ€Øm6Bj9Õ(9Ô°9Õ=ÿäÒT9Ôð6 ó°€€€9ÔÐ6 €€€Ù.€6 6Bj9Õ,9Ôðˆ@ïvT±È/web-server.htm>

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