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CSI225 Internet Computing: About The Web

The document discusses the infrastructure of the World Wide Web. It explains that the web uses a client-server model, with web browsers acting as clients that send requests to web servers. It describes how URLs identify resources and are used by hyperlinks, and how the Domain Name System (DNS) converts domain names to IP addresses. The document outlines the process by which browsers use HTTP to request and receive web pages and their components from servers.

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77 views

CSI225 Internet Computing: About The Web

The document discusses the infrastructure of the World Wide Web. It explains that the web uses a client-server model, with web browsers acting as clients that send requests to web servers. It describes how URLs identify resources and are used by hyperlinks, and how the Domain Name System (DNS) converts domain names to IP addresses. The document outlines the process by which browsers use HTTP to request and receive web pages and their components from servers.

Uploaded by

ag4a
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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University of Guyana • Faculty of Natural Sciences •

Department of Computer Science

CSI225 Internet Computing (lecture 2)

About the Web…

Overview
In the previous lecture you were introduced to the Internet, its
origins, infrastructure and associated technologies. Among the
mentioned technologies that are facilitated by the Internet is the
World Wide Web. This lecture continues by exploring the web,
one major constituent at a time.

The Infrastructure of the Web


As previously described, the World Wide Web is a system of
interconnected hypertext documents that runs over the Internet.
When we browse the web, via a web browser, we first access a
web address that takes us to a web site. A website can be
thought of as a collection of related web pages that are
navigated via hyperlinks according to the hypertext UI
paradigm (mentioned in the previous lecture). Any given web
page may present text, images and multimedia or referenced
file resources for the end-user.

In exploring the infrastructure of the Web, a good place to start


would be on the client’s end, more specifically – the client’s
browser.

The web, itself, uses a client-server model of computing which


is a common network architecture that separates a client (an
application that presents a GUI) from a server (an application
that services client requests). With regards to the web, the web
browser (or more technically the user agent), represents the

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University of Guyana • Faculty of Natural Sciences •
Department of Computer Science

client application while the web server, represents the distant


application that services the web browser requests.

Some examples of web-browsers are:


1. Mozilla Firefox
2. Netscape Navigator
3. Internet Explorer
4. Opera

Some examples of web-servers are:


1. Apache HTTP Webserver
2. Jakarta Tomcat Webserver
3. Netscape Enterprise Server
4. Microsoft IIS

These two applications are able to connect over the Internet via
the TCP/IP protocol and more importantly, are able to
communicate with each other via the HTTP protocol.

The URL

Routinely, before a web browser can load any resource such as


a web page, it must first identify or locate the resource on the
particular server that may be serving/hosting it.
At this stage, a URL (more uncommonly a URI) comes into
play as the vital standard that locates or indicates all of the
hosted resources throughout the vastness of the web.

Hyperlinks, in essence utilise URLs to perform the internal or


external linkages among web pages or other resources on the
web.

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University of Guyana • Faculty of Natural Sciences •
Department of Computer Science

A typical URL fed to a browser looks like the following:


http://www.google.com

Generally, URLs are made up of a protocol identifier (dark


grey) and a resource name (light grey).
URLs are usually encountered with the http: protocol
identifier; however, browsers also support a variety of URL
types and their corresponding protocols such as:
ftp: for FTP,
rtsp: for RTSP (real-time streaming protocol) and
https: for HTTPS (a secure version of HTTP).

The resource name portion of a URL may be further broken


down to contain a:

http://www.ugcsi.edu:8080/courses/jsp/index.jsp#end

Domain Name
Reference
Port File
Number Name

Domain Name (Host name) – name of the machine that


hosts the resource
Port number – the port through which the connection is
made
File name – the path to the resource on the machine
Reference – reference to a named anchor within a
resource page.

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University of Guyana • Faculty of Natural Sciences •
Department of Computer Science

When a URL, like the one shown previously, is supplied to a


web browser, the browser evaluates the various parts of it to
seek out and display the resource identified.

More specifically, the browser identifies the host through the


domain name, gathers a port number (by default it’s 80), and
issues a TCP/IP connection to the server to subsequently load
the resource.

The Domain Name System (DNS)

Since IP addresses appear quite cryptic and TCP/IP web


connections depend on an IP address - port number
combination, the web employs a distributed Internet database
known as the Domain Name System (DNS) to attach easy-to-
recall domain names to cryptic IP addresses.

A domain name consists of two or more labels separated by


dots (e.g. uog.edu.gy, yahoo.com). The rightmost label (.gy ,
.com) conveys the top-level domain while every other label to
the left specifies a subdivision of the domain above it.

The DNS consists of a hierarchical set of DNS servers where


each domain or sub-domain has one or more authoritative DNS
Servers that publish information about the respective domain
and the name of the servers of any domains falling under it. At
the top of this hierarchy are the root servers which are the first
to be queried when resolving a domain name into an IP
address.

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University of Guyana • Faculty of Natural Sciences •
Department of Computer Science

The address resolution process, in short, is recursive - starting


from the root DNS and working through several name servers
to find the associated IP address. The following diagram
illustrates this:

Taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:An_example_of_theoretical_DNS_recursion.svg

The Browser and the Web Page

Provided that a domain name has been successfully resolved


and a connection has been initiated between the browser
(client) and the web server, they then communicate using
issued requests (from client) and corresponding responses
(from server) via the HTTP protocol.

If the requested resource is a web page (and it most typically


is) the web browser receives HTML text which it parses. The
browser then typically makes subsequent requests to the web
server for additional content such as graphics and other files
that form part of the web page (as specified in the HTML
source).

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University of Guyana • Faculty of Natural Sciences •
Department of Computer Science

When all has been loaded, the web browser finally renders the
page as described by the HTML, CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)
and other files received. The end result is a visible web page in
the browser through which the user can interact with the rest of
the website and the web.

References:
"Web browser." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 3 Feb 2007, 18:28 UTC. Wikimedia
Foundation, Inc. 4 Feb 2007
<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Web_browser&oldid=105377255>.

"World Wide Web." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 1 Feb 2007, 21:23 UTC. Wikimedia
Foundation, Inc. 4 Feb 2007
<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=World_Wide_Web&oldid=104929546>.

"Domain Name System." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 31 May 2006, 11:08 UTC.
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 4 Feb 2007
<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Domain_Name_System&oldid=56107668>.

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