What is the Server? and How does it work?
What is the Server?
A server is a software or hardware device that accepts and responds to requests made over a network. The device that makes the request, and receives a response from the server, is called a Client. On the Internet, the term “server” commonly refers to the computer system that receives requests for web files and sends those files to the client.
What are they used for?
Servers manage network resources. For example, a user may set up a server to control access to a network, send/receive an e-mail, manage print jobs, or host a website. They are also proficient at performing intense calculations. Some servers are committed to a specific task, often called dedicated. However, many servers today are shared servers that take on the responsibility of e-mail, DNS, FTP, and even multiple websites in the case of a web server.
How do web servers work?
Web server software is accessed through the domain names of websites and ensures the delivery of the site’s content to the requesting user. The software side is also comprised of several components, with at least an HTTP server. The HTTP server is able to understand HTTP and URLs. As hardware, a web server is a computer that stores web server software and other files related to a website, such as HTML documents, images and JavaScript files.
When a web browser, like Google Chrome or Firefox, needs a file that’s hosted on a web server, the browser will request the file by HTTP. When the request is received by the web server, the HTTP server will accept the request, find the content and send it back to the browser through HTTP.
More specifically, when a browser requests a page from a web server, the process will follow a series of steps. First, a person will specify a URL in a web browser’s address bar. The web browser will then obtain the IP address of the domain name — either translating the URL through DNS (Domain Name System) or by searching in its cache. This will bring the browser to a web server. The browser will then request the specific file from the web server by an HTTP request. The web server will respond, sending the browser the requested page, again, through HTTP. If the requested page does not exist or if something goes wrong, the web server will respond with an error message. The browser will then be able to display the webpage.
Multiple domains also can be hosted on one web server.
Examples of web server uses
Web servers often come as part of a larger package of internet- and intranet-related programs that are used for:
- Sending and receiving emails
- Downloading requests for File Transfer Protocol (FTP) files
- Building and publishing webpages.
Many basic web servers will also support server-side scripting, which is used to employ scripts on a web server that can customize the response to the client. Server-side scripting runs on the server machine and typically has a broad feature set, which includes database access. The server-side scripting process will also use Active Server Pages (ASP), Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP) and other scripting languages. This process also allows HTML documents to be created dynamically.
