Web Servers

WWW Servers

In this post, we are going to learn about the web servers available for the world wide web.

To make available the services of Web pages, Web sites need a host, a computer, and server software that runs on the host. The host manages the communication protocols and the related software required to create a Website on the Internet. The host machine often uses the UNIX, Windows NT, Windows 2000, or Macintosh Operating systems which have the TCP/IP protocols built in. The server software resides on the host and serves up the pages and otherwise acts on the requests sent from the client browser software.

A Web server is a program that runs on a Website and is responsible for replying to Web browser requests for files. you need a Web server to publish documents on the Web.

Types of Servers

There are different types of server software (database servers or network servers, etc) that perform different types of services for different types of clients. Specifically, a Web server is an HTTP server and its function is to send information to the client software (typically a browser) using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). The client browser requests and the server returns and Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) document. The server receives this request and sends back a response.

Functions performed by Web Server

A web server does the following jobs:

It passes requests to run CGI (Common Gateway Interface) scripts to the CGI applications. These scripts run external mini-programs, such as a database lookup or interactive forms processing.

The server software includes configuration files and utilities to secure and manage the Website in a variety of ways.

Working of Web Server Software

Client (Internet browser) software sends its request for data to the host, and the Web server software processes the request. Included in the browser’s request are the desired information and the file formats the browser can accept. If the browser asks for an HTML file, the Web server retrieves the file, attaches a header to the file, and sends it to the browser.

If the browser has asked for specific database information, the Web server will pass a request through CGI to the application, which performs a database lookup. The CGI script returns the result to the Web server, which in turn attaches a header to the data and sends it to the browser.

The host computer must have a uniques IP address to send and receive information across the Internet.