Web servers (the httpd daemon on Linux and Unix computers) are where web pages are stored. A web server has many capabilities, but the primary function is to respond to HTTP requests. When you type in a website address in your web browser, the browser uses DNS to resolve the name into an IP address and then opens a TCP/IP connection using HTTP to request the web page. The server looks through it's web root directory for the file specified in the Uniform Resource Locator. If the
For any given website (such as www.inetdaemon.com) the web server contains all the pages at that website in a special directory which is referred to as the web root. Web servers run special software which provides (hopefully) limited access to HTML files stored in the web root which are web pages on the server and to deliver requested resources from the server. The web server makes it possible to provide access to information or services in a controllable fashion that is platform independant.
SERVER SOFTWARE PACKAGES
- CERN httpd (final version July 15, 1996)
- Jigsaw (Java reference implementation of CERN httpd - last release April 10, 2007)
- Apache
- IBM HTTP Server (i5/OS)
- Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS)