How Web Works
Inside This Article 1. Introduction to How Web Servers Work 2.The Basic Process 3.Behind the Scenes 4.The Internet 5.Clients and Servers 6.IP Addresses 7.Domain Names 8.Name Servers 9.Ports 10.Protocols 11.Putting It All Together 12.Extras: Security 13.Extras: Dynamic Pages 14.Lots More Information 15.See all Internet articles Basic Process Your browser formed a connection to a Web server, requested a page and received it. Behind the Scenes If you want to get into a bit more detail on the process of getting a Web page onto your computer screen, here are the basic steps that occurred behind the scenes: • The browser broke the URL into three parts: 1. The protocol ("http") 2. The server name ("www.howstuffworks.com") 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, which it uses to connect to the server machine. • The browser then formed a conn...